“Indulge yourself, oh, my Juliette, without fear, proudly surrender to the impetuosity of your tastes, to the irregularity of your caprices, to the blazing ardor of your desires; your wantonness is my cheer, your pleasures my joy; be ever guided by them, ruled by them and by nothing else; may your voluptuous imagination ensure variety to our disorders; only by multiplying them will we attain happiness. Happiness being an intrinsically fickle and fugitive thing, it confers its blessing only upon him who is clever to mark it, quick to seize it, strong to hold it; and never lose sight of the fact that all human felicity lies in man’s imagination, and that he cannot think to attain it unless he heeds all his caprices. The most fortunate of persons is he who has the most means to satisfy his vagaries: get ye girls, men, children; upon all those in your entourage direct the lasciviousness of your impassioned soul; whatever delights is good, whatever arouses is natural.
“Do you not see the star that lights us sometimes give life and sometimes take it away, now vivifying, now withering to dust? Match the sun in thy conduct as thou dost figure it in thy fair eyes. Take Messalina and Theodora for thy models; like those famous whores of antiquity, supply thyself with harems of either sex wherein thou canst plunge conveniently and when thou wilt into a very ocean of filthiness. Wallow in ordure and infamy; let all that is of the dirtiest and the most execrable, of the most shameful and the most criminal, of the most cynical and the most repulsive, of the most unnatural, illegal, irreligious, be for those very reasons that which dost please thee most. Soil without stint and at leisure the loveliest parts of thy body, remember that there is not a one where lubricity may not find a shrine, and that the divinest pleasures are unfailingly those whereat thou perhaps suppose Nature vexed. When the most odious of debauchery’s excesses, when the most depraved turpitudes, when the most disgusting activities begin to pall upon thee and leave thee listless, have resort to cruelties, they reanimate; the most ghastly and fell deeds, the most revolting atrocities, the most unimaginable and nameless crimes, the most gratuitous horrors, the most monstrous perversities, let these be the means to convey thy soul from the lethargy where libertinage may have left it. Nor forget that Nature is thine ally and sanction; that whatever she lets us do is permissible; and that when she created us she was cunning enough to withhold from us the power and possibility of doing her injury. Thou shalt then notice Love sometimes maketh his arrows into daggers, and that for bringing our fuck to flow the invectives of the doomed one we torment often outvalue the polite gallantries of Cythera.”
Deeply moved by Saint-Fond’s speech, I ventured to indicate that my sole fear was of the possibility his kindness to me might come to an end.
“Juliette,” he gave me answer, “you’d have fallen out of grace a good while before this had I merely been your lover; for, however beautiful she may be, the favors of a woman cannot exert prise upon me for long. He unto whom it is a principle that the instant one has finished fucking a woman is the instant when it is essential to be finished with her, must of a certainty, if he is only a lover, inspire such an eventuality as causes you to worry; but Juliette, and hereof I need hardly remind you, there is precious little of the vulgar amorist in me; both of us bound by similarities of taste, intellect, outlook, and self-interest, I apprehend our attachment as one forged out of egoism alone, and that kind endures forever. Would I advise you to fuck broad if I were your lover? No, Juliette, no, that I am not, such I shall never be. Hence dread no change of heart in me; if ever I quit you it will be you the cause of our separation, only you. Maintain your good behavior, I tell you, be active in the service of my pleasures; let not a moment go by when I do not develop some new vice in you or further refine an old one; while we are at home, show me submissiveness carried to the last degree of baseness, the lower you crawl cringingly at my feet, the higher I, from pride, shall set you above others; above all, whatsoever may be the thing I require you to do, do it without ever displaying any weakness, any hint of contrition, and I shall render you the happiest of women as you shall render me the luckiest of men.”
“Oh, my master,” said I, “be ever sure that if I would reign over the world, it is to bring it on its bended knees in homage to you.”
Next we left off generalities to discuss certain particulars. Saint-Fond expressed regret at not having been able to subject his niece to the wheel; which, said he, he would definitely have done were he not under obligation to produce her head in Paris. Then he spoke in very great praise of Delcour.
“He is full of imagination,” said the Minister. “He is young and vigorous besides, and I must compliment you upon having desired his prick. For my own part, it is always a delight to fuck him. In passing let me remark that, as I have often had occasion to observe, the same man you fucked in your youth can yet be fucked pleasurably when you are forty. We are alike, aren’t we Juliette?” he went on. “As did I, you took a fancy to him on account of his trade; were it not for that, neither of us would have paid him the slightest attention.”
“Have you had many such fellows?” I asked Saint-Fond.
“For five or six years they were my specialty,” he replied, “I combed the provinces to get hold of them; and I had an incredible leaning toward their valets. You simply cannot imagine what it’s like to have the prick of a headsman’s valet in your ass; after a time though, I found something equivalent in butchers’ boys. Often I’d pass two hours being embuggered by one of those lads come fresh from his slaughtering and bloody all over.”
“Adorable,” said I.
“Beyond words so,” said he. “Ah yes, my dear, believe me, those stunts call for infamy and depravation; and what the devil is lust, if crapulousness is not therein as its very soul? By the way,” the Minister continued, “one of those tribades has an appalling effect upon my nerves—I refer to the pretty blonde, the whom, I think, obtained the last of my fuck.”
“Palmire?”
“Yes, ’twas doubtless so I heard you call her. Her ass was the fairest, its hole the narrowest, the warmest of the lot…. How did you gain possession of the wench?”
“She was working at a dressmaker’s, was just turned eighteen when I found her and as mint as a babe emerging from its mother’s womb; Palmire is an orphan. She comes of a good line, and has no parents save an elderly aunt who gave me an excellent character of the girl.”
“Do you love her, Juliette?”
“Saint-Fond, I don’t love anything. I am moved by caprice only.”
“I feel this pretty creature lacks absolutely nothing of what is needed to make a delicious victim; undeniably she is beautiful, it is quite certain she would be yet more so in distress, she has magnificent hair, a sublime ass whose qualities are indeed outstanding…. Here, Juliette, dost see how my prick soars at the thought of martyrizing her?”
Truly, never had I seen his prick in such high wrath, I clutched it and set to frigging it softly.
“But if I take her,” he added, “I’ll pay you well, I’ll pay you a better price for her than for another, since I desire her.”
“To my understanding, does not that word have the meaning and force of a command? Wouldst have her come in this instant?”
“I would, for my prick is gone up for her.”
Saint-Fond, flinging a dressing robe about himself, sprang toward Palmire as she came into the room and, taking her firmly by the arm, disappeared with her into another chamber: long, arduous was the séance; I could hear Palmire’s screams. An hour elapsed before they returned. As he had made her undress before leading her off to that secret lair, the first thing that caught my eye when she reappeared was the extent to which she had been mistreated; and even if her body had not been naked, the tears still coursing down her cheeks would have been sufficient evidence. It was but too superfluously confirmed by the marks on her breasts and buttocks.
“Juliette,” declared her tormentor, visibly overwrought by what he had just accomplished, “it breaks my heart but I simply do not have enough time for this: those b
lasted heads must be delivered to the Queen by five this afternoon, which means I’ll not be able to amuse myself with this girl in the manner I’d like. Not today at least. So this is my suggestion. Have her present the day after tomorrow at our next three-girl supper. Until then, prison her safely in the darkest and best-barred of your dungeon cells; I forbid you to allow her any nourishment or drink, and order you to fetter her so closely to the wall she will be able neither to sit down nor even to stir. Do not question her about what has just now passed; I have my own reasons for preferring to keep you in ignorance thereabout. For this Palmire you will receive double the customary fee. Farewell.”
So saying, he and Delcour, the latter carrying the box containing the three heads, mount Saint-Fond’s coach; it drives away; and I, keenly agitated, remain rooted to the spot.
I had a great fondness for Palmire. Very loath I was to surrender her to that cannibal; but could I disobey? Daring not even to speak to her, I had her taken off to the dungeon; and scarcely was she there when two sentiments assailed me. The first was a desire to save this girl, of whom I was still far from being weary; the second revolved around an extreme curiosity to discover just how Saint-Fond proceeded with women upon whom he pronounced capital sentence. Ceding to this latter desire, I was about to start down to interrogate the captive when a servant ushered in Madame de Clairwil.
Several days earlier she had seen the Minister and learned from him the time of his return from the country; and now she had come to ask whether I would not care to drive back with her to Paris and to see a charming ballet at the Opera. I embraced my friend most warmly; I related to her all we had lately achieved, Saint-Fond and I; the follies I’d committed before the Minister’s arrival, I spoke also of them, and of all the others that had ensued. The dear creature found my stories delicious and congratulated me upon the progress I was beginning to make in crime. When I alluded to what was afoot regarding Palmire, Clairwil raised a cautioning hand.
“Juliette,” said she, “beware. Banish all thoughts of cheating the Minister of his victim, and above all of prying into his obscure ways; be rather mindful that your fate depends upon this man, and that the pleasure you might derive from discovering his secret, or from preserving your slut’s life, will never console you for the woes that will unfailingly beset you do you act the fool. You’ll find ten score girls worth more than this one; and as for Saint-Fond’s secret, knowledge of one piece of infamy more or less is not going to make you happier. Let’s dine, my beloved, and then hasten back to the city; it will distract you.”
By six o’clock we were en route, Clairwil, Elvire, Montalme, and I; the team of six English horses had us flying swift as the wind and we would surely have arrived in time for the opening of the ballet, when but a little out of the village of Arcueil we met with four men, who were mounted and had pistols in their hands. Night had fallen. Our lackeys, effeminate, craven fellows, fops almost, ran off as fast as their legs could carry them, and, save only for the two coachmen, we were left to confront the four masked riders alone.
Clairwil, who knew not the meaning of fear, singled out him who looked to be the ringleader and, addressing him in an imperious tone, demanded what he fancied he was about; not a word did he reply. Our drivers were ordered to turn the coach about, we proceeded back away in the direction of Arcueil, then climbed to Cachan, and swung off into a narrow road which at length brought us to a lonely fortified castle. The coach entered, the gates closed, we even heard them being barricaded from within; thereupon one of our escorts opened the door of the coach and silently offered his hand, inviting us to step out.
My knees buckled as I got down from the coach, I was close to fainting away, for indeed I was dreadfully afraid; my women were in no better case; only Clairwil was undaunted. Head high, lips compressed, she bade us take courage. Three of our ravishers disappeared; their captain led us into a well-lit drawing room. There, our eyes were greeted by the sight of an old man: he was weeping, and two very pretty young ladies were endeavoring to console him.
“Mesdames, these persons gathered here,” pronounced our guide, who had now been rejoined by his three fellows, “are all that remain of the Cloris family. The old gentleman is’ the father of the husband, these two ladies are the sisters of his wife, and we are his brothers. The head of this house, his wife and daughter too, are missing; false charges were brought against them, through no fault of their own they incurred Her Majesty’s displeasure and, worse yet, the wrath of that Minister who owes his place and fortune to none other than my brother’s generosity and aid. Enquiries we rapidly made led us to the conviction that these three persons, of whom there has been nothing heard since the day before yesterday, are being held prisoner, or are dead, in the country house you left this same evening. You belong to the Minister; one of you is his mistress, this we know. You shall either guide us to the recovery of the three we seek, or persuade us that they are no longer alive; until then, you shall remain our hostages. Restore our relatives to us and you go free; but if they have been murdered, then you shall be with them in the grave very shortly, and your shades shall implore theirs for forgiveness. Beyond this we have nothing to say to you; now ’tis your turn to speak. Be quick.”
“Messieurs,” answered the brazen Clairwil, “it would appear to me that your doings are in every sense profoundly illegal. I would also qualify them as exceedingly clumsy. For consider: to begin with, is it likely that two women, madame and myself—these others are our servants—is it at all likely, I say, that two women be so well acquainted with the Minister’s private affairs as to have any knowledge of such happenings as you refer to? Do you really suppose that if the persons in question have fallen into disgrace at Court, and that Justice or the Minister has been called upon to take action; do you honestly believe that we would have been made privy to any such execution? You know when we departed from the Minister’s house, you doubtless know when we arrived; does not our presence under his roof during the last few days most conclusively prove that the event could not have transpired there? For the rest, gentlemen, we have nought but our word of honor to give you, but we offer it as guaranty of our total ignorance of what may have befallen those after whose fate you ask. No, gentlemen, no, we do declare to you that we have never even heard tell of these people until now, and if you are just men, and have no more to say to us, put us at our liberty this instant, for it is against our will you detain us here, and you have not the right to do so.”
“We shall not amuse ourselves refuting you, Madame,” our guide replied. “One of you has been four days upon the Minister’s estate, the other arrived there late this afternoon. It was also four days ago the Cloris family entered that same house; of you two, one is most assuredly in a position to answer the questions I have posed, and you have neither of you any chance of being released until we are fully enlightened.”
Whereupon the three other horsemen declared that since we were not eager to speak of our own free will, there were ways of extracting information from us by force.
“Ah, my sons, that I would not have,” said the old man, “no violence shall be done here. We must eschew our enemies’ means lest we be likewise guilty of an evil. We shall merely request these ladies to compose a letter to the Minister, asking him to come to this house forthwith; and the message may be so styled as to give him the impression that they, and they alone, are soliciting his presence for business of the greatest urgency. He will come; we shall question him; he will finally have no choice but to tell us where my son and daughter are: for if he refuses, this hand, trembling though it is, shall find the strength to thrust a knife-point into his heart…. Wicked abuses of tyranny! Dire results of despotism! O people of France, when shall you rise up against these horrors? When, tired of slavery and conscious of your tremendous might, when shall you look boldly up and snap the chains with which crowned criminals keep you in bondage, when shall you reclaim the freedom whereunto Nature destined you? … Put pen and ink and paper before these ladie
s and let them write.”
“Keep them amused,” I whispered to Clairwil, “occupy their attentions and leave the letter to me.”
This was the text: “An affair of the very extremest importance necessitates your presence here; the bearer of this note will guide you, come with the utmost dispatch.”
I submit the letter to our captors, they approve it. While addressing the envelope I find a moment to scribble this postscript: “Rush hither in force, else we’re lost; it is perforce the foregoing is indited.” The missive is sealed, one of the brothers leaves with it, and we are introduced into a room in an upper story; the door is bolted, and another brother stands guard without.
No sooner were we alone than I told Clairwil what I had appended to the letter.
She shook her head. “That does not suffice to set my mind at rest,” said she. “For if he comes here in force, these people have but to see that force and our throats are cut. What if we try to seduce our jailer?”
“We’ll fail,” I replied. “These aren’t hired thugs. They are bound by honor, not to mention ties of blood, nothing will dissuade them from seeking their revenge. Ah, Clairwil, it does indeed seem to me that I have not yet got firm grasp of our principles, for in truth I do greatly fear lest some fatality or other, call it what you will, shall see virtue triumph in the end.”
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