Juliette

by Marquis de Sade

  16. Eating and drinking carried to any point of gluttony and drunkenness are authorized; every Member is assured of assistance while indulging in these as in other excesses; all possible measures are taken to facilitate them.

  17. No condemnation by a court of law, no public disgrace, no defamation of character will disqualify a candidate for admission into the Sodality. Its principles being based upon crime, the criminal element poses no threat to it; to the contrary. Rejected by the world, these outcasts will find consolations and friends in a society which recognizes their value and will always give preference to their candidacy. The worse a given individual’s reputation abroad, the more highly he will be thought of by the Sodality; very notorious criminals and eminent public enemies may be elected to the presidency upon the day of their admission, and given the run of the seraglios without prior novitiate.

  18. Public confession is made at each of the four major General Assemblies, the dates of which coincide with what Catholics call the four great festival days of the year; at them each Member is in turn obliged to declare in a loud and clear voice by and large everything he has done: if his conduct has been blameless, he is reproved; much praise is his if it has been irregular; be it horrible, if he has accumulated execrable deeds, then he is rewarded; but in this last case he must produce witnesses. The prizes are fixed at ten thousand francs drawn from the Treasury.

  19. Frequented by Members only, their location known to Members alone, the Sodality’s premises are of particular splendor; and surrounded by superb grounds. Fires are maintained in all rooms throughout the winter season. Assemblies begin at five in the afternoon and last until noon the following day. Toward midnight a sumptuous meal is served, refreshments are available at all other times.

  20. All games and gambling are forbidden during Assembly; devoted to more natural forms of recreation, the Sodality frowns upon anything in any way conducive to the neglect of libertinage’s divine passions, the only ones capable of electrifying the human being.

  21. One month is the period of initiation for each newly elected Member; during this novitiate he is completely at the disposition of the Sodality, is its toy; may not enter the seraglios or enjoy any privilege or consideration. He must consent to all such propositions as are made him; failure so to do may incur capital punishment.

  22. Election to all posts is by secret ballot; factions, cabals, cliques are strictly forbidden. These posts are those of President, the two Executive Secretaries, Censors, the two Wardens entrusted with government of the seraglios, Treasurer, Steward, Bailiff, the two Physicians, two Surgeons, Obstetrician, Master of the Chancery under whom are the Scribes, the Printers, the Reviser, and the Censor of Texts and Publications, and the Inspector General of admission cards.

  23. Men over forty years of age, women over thirty-five are not received by the Sodality; once admitted, however, no Member may be expelled on grounds of old age.

  24. Any member who does not attend a Sodality Assembly during the space of a year will be stricken from the roster; obligations public or private, however, constitute valid excuse for absence.

  25. Any written work attacking polite customs or religion presented by a Sodality Member, whether of his production or no, will be deposited at once in the Library, and the donor will be rewarded therefore, in accordance with the merits of the work and his share in its composition.

  26. Children resulting from Sodality unions will be, at birth, immediately placed in the crèche and subsequently in the nursery annexed to the seraglios, later—at the age of ten for boys, of seven for girls—to become inmates thereof. But a woman addicted to child-bearing will not be tolerated by the Sodality, propagation being utterly alien to its spirit and aims; true libertinage abhors progeniture; and the Sodality therefore disfavors it: female Members will denounce men given to this mania and if the latter prove incorrigible, they also will be invited to prepare their withdrawal from the Sodality.

  27. The President’s duties are to ensure the smooth running of the Assembly. Under his orders is the Censor; theirs is the responsibility for maintaining decorum and a propitious atmosphere: the calm, the freedom from interference, the enthusiasm of agents, the submissiveness of patients; they are, as well, to see to the preservation of quiet, moderating laughter and conversations and everything else that is incondite and not in the spirit of libertinage or that is damaging to it. The President has the highest authority over the seraglios. He may not, during his term of office, leave Sodality headquarters unless he appoints his predecessor to take temporary charge in his absence.

  28. Oaths, hard language, and blasphemies in particular are authorized, they may be employed upon all occasions. Between Members the familiar thou is compulsory.

  29. The jealousies, the quarrels, the scenes entailed in love, as well as the language of love, endearing expressions, tender ones, etc., are absolutely prohibited; all this is detrimental to libertinage, and libertinage is the business to which the Sodality is to attend.

  30. Dueling has no place in the Sodality, nor roistering, neither do bullies and bravoes, they will be expelled mercilessly. Poltroonery is revered here as it was in Rome. The coward lives at peace with his fellows; he is quite commonly a libertine too, such are the people the Sodality wants.

  31. The total number of Members may at no time exceed four hundred and in so far as that is possible, the proportionate strength of the two sexes will be kept equal.

  32. Theft is permitted within the bounds of the Sodality; but murder is not, except in the seraglios.

  33. Members need not bring with them the furnitures, implements, and weaponry requisite to libertinage; for the house provides these objects in abundance and variety, and they are clean.

  34. Repulsive deformities or diseases will not be put up with. Someone so afflicted, were he to present himself, would most surely be rejected. And were an already admitted Member to fall prey to such misfortunes, he would be asked to resign.

  35. A Member who contracts the venereal malady will be obliged to retire until completely restored, his recovery being vouched for by the house Physician and Surgeons.

  36. No foreigner will be admitted; provincials are likewise debarred. The Sodality exists only for persons resident in Paris and its environs.

  37. High birth will in no wise facilitate admission; the essential is to prove one has the necessary means alluded to above (Article 6). However pretty a woman may be she shall not be accepted unless she possess the required wealth; the same will apply to any young man, however handsome.

  38. Neither beauty nor youth confers any exclusive privilege in the Sodality; privileges would speedily destroy the equality which must prevail there.

  39. Death will be the certain fate of any Member who divulges secrets of the Sodality, which will have him hunted down no matter where he goes, and at no matter what cost.

  40. Ease, liberty, impiety, crapulousness, all libertine excesses, all those of debauchery, of eating and drinking, in short, of what is known as foul lust, will reign supreme during Assembly.

  41. One hundred male servants are retained at all times and paid by the Sodality; they, youthful and attractive all, may be used to fill passive roles in lewd scenes; but will never participate actively therein. The Sodality owns sixteen vehicles, a corresponding number of teams, has two equerries in its hire and fifty outside valets. It has a print shop, type setters, a dozen copyists, and four readers; and in addition all the personnel necessitated by the seraglios.

  42. No firearms, no sword, no stick may be introduced into the hall reserved for pleasure. Before entering, Members leave all they have with them in a spacious cloakroom, where trustworthy women relieve them of their clothing and are held accountable for it. Adjoining the hall are several public conveniences; stationed in each are attendants, girls and boys, ready to be of any service; they have syringes, bidets, vessels in the English style, ordinary pots, high-quality linens, cloths and swabs, perfumes, and in general everything needed before and aft
er the operation or while it is in course. They will lend their tongues upon simple request.

  43. Under no circumstances does the Sodality intrude or interfere in government affairs, nor may any Member. Political speeches are expressly forbidden. The Sodality respects the regime in power; and if its attitude toward the law is disdainful, that is because it holds as a principle that man is incapable of making laws which obstruct or contradict those of Nature; but the disorders of its Members, transpiring privately, ought never to scandalize either the governed or their governors.

  44. Among the facilities offered Sodality Members are two seraglios, they are located in the two wings of the main building. One is composed of three hundred boys ranging from seven to twenty-five years of age; the other of a like number of girls, from five to twenty-one. These creatures are constantly replaced, not a week goes by but at least thirty are winnowed out of each seraglio so as to make room for fresh accessions: close by is an establishment where new lots are trained up to fill gaps in the ranks. Sixty procuresses look after recruitment; and, as has been said, there is a Warden for each seraglio. These seraglios are agreeable places, comfortably appointed; there, one does exactly what one likes; the most ferocious passions are exercised in these sanctuaries where all Sodality Members are admitted free of charge; however, a tax of one hundred crowns is levied per creature murdered. Those Members who choose to sup in a seraglio are at liberty to do so; entrance tickets are distributed by the President, who cannot refuse them to Members in good standing and who have accomplished their month as novices. The extremest subordination on the part of the inmates prevails in the seraglios; complaints relative to lack of submissiveness or of cooperation will be taken at once to the Warden of the seraglio, or to the President, and no time is lost chastising the miscreant, according to the plaintiff’s specifications, and you have the right to inflict the penalty yourself, if such things amuse you. There are twelve torture chambers per seraglio, where everything is at hand for dealing with victims in the most awful, the most unspeakable manner. Although each seraglio contains creatures of only one sex, they may be mixed at will and to taste, males being fetched into the midst of females, or females into the midst of males. There are in addition twelve dungeons per seraglio, for the use of those who enjoy subjecting victims to the slow death of incarceration. Inmates of the two seraglios may not be removed either to the pleasure halls or to a Member’s personal residence. The lateral pavilions housing the seraglios contain menageries as well, where animals of every species await the Member given to bestiality; this is a simple passion and altogether natural, and must hence be respected like all the rest.

  Three complaints brought against any one subject suffice to have him removed. Three requests that he be put to death suffice to have him dispatched without further ado. In each seraglio are four executioners, four jailers, eight whippers, four flayers, four mid-wives, and four surgeons all at the orders of Members who, in the heat of passion, might have need of the ministry of such personages; it being understood of course that the midwives and surgeons are present not by any means to render humanitarian aid, but to assist in tortures. As soon as a seraglio inmate manifests the slightest symptom of illness he is sent to the hospital, never again to return to the house.

  Each seraglio is surrounded on three sides by high walls. All the windows are barred, and the inmates remain indoors, always. Between the building and the high wall shielding it is a space ten feet wide, forming an alley bordered by cypress trees; Sodality Members sometimes take seraglio inmates for walks along this secluded pathway, to indulge with them in pleasures more somber and often still more frightful. At the foot of a number of these trees are holes, pits into which a victim may be made to disappear; suppers are held under these trees from time to time, and occasionally in these very pits: whereof some are extremely deep, descent into them being possible by means only of hidden stairways, and in the lower reaches of which one may accomplish every imaginable infamy, the same stillness, the same silence reigning there as in the uttermost bowels of the earth.

  45. No candidate will be admitted without first signing both the oath he will be made to repeat, and the list of obligations corresponding to his sex.

  The time came to leave. I was adorned like the goddess of daylight; Clairwil, my sponsor, was in a gay mood and out of coquetry had dressed herself to look like a girl of fourteen. En route she reminded me of the extreme docility I was to show in the face of all the Sodality members’ desires, and she also said that as regards the seraglios I would simply have to be patient for, as a novice, it would be a month before I could make use of them, no exception was ever allowed to the rules.

  The house to which we were driving was in one of the bleakest and least populous quarters of Paris; it took nearly an hour to get there. My heart beat excitedly when our carriage entered a dark courtyard virtually enclosed by tall black trees, the gates shut immediately after we were inside. A servant was awaiting us as we stepped from the carriage, and he escorted us into the hall. Clairwil was obliged to surrender her clothing: I, however, was to undress later, in the course of the ceremony. This was a veritable palace, superbly lit; in the entrance and so placed on the floor that one could not avoid treading upon it was a big crucifix sprinkled with hosts and at whose farther end was the Bible, which one had to step upon as well; I was not daunted, you may be sure, by any of these obstacles.

  I went in. An exceedingly handsome woman of thirty-five was presiding, she was nude, her coiffure was magnificent; those to her left and right where she sat on the platform of honor were naked also, they were two men and a woman. Over three hundred members had already arrived and there they were, all naked; some were encunting, some masturbating, some flagellating, some cunt-sucking, some sodomizing, some discharging, and all that most serenely and amidst perfect calm: not a sound was to be heard save the noises necessitated by the various circumstances. Some were strolling about in pairs, some alone; many were watching the crowd and while gazing at spectacles fingering themselves voluptuously. There were several groups, some of them composed of up to eight and even ten persons; many of men only; no fewer of women exclusively; of several women between two men; and of several men occupying two or three women. Extremely pleasant incense burned in great cassolettes, emitting heady vapors whose irresistible effect was a sort of sensual languor. I saw a trio emerge together from one of the latrines.

  And then the President rose and in a quiet voice said that she would like to have the attention of the assembly for a moment. Activity soon ceased and a few minutes later I found myself surrounded by all the members present; never had I been so closely scrutinized nor by so many people; each delivered an opinion, and I believe I can assert that the view generally expressed was flattering; there was whispering, glances, nods were exchanged, and clearly all sorts of little plots were being hatched against me, and I shuddered at the thought that I was about to have to subject myself to all the desires roused by my youth and my charms. At length the President bade me step up and stand on the dais opposite her; and there, a balustrade separating me from the very numerous company, I was upon her instructions divested of my raiments by two servants who in less time than it takes to tell had off every stitch I was wearing. When the servants withdrew and left me absolutely naked before the bold stares of those several hundred spectators, I was, I do admit, somewhat embarrassed; but that feeling was short-lived, my impudence was restored at once by the applause I heard ring out. These, such as I shall recite them to you, were the questions the President put me; and my answers to them:

  “Do you promise to live your whole life long in libertinage of the very extremest order?”

  “I swear it.”

  “Do you esteem all lewd acts, whatever they be and including the most odious, to be simple and natural?”

  “They are all as one to me, thus do I consider them.”

  “Would you commit each and every one of them if moved by the slightest desire?”

  “I wo
uld indeed. All of them.”

  “Do you declare your intention to adhere strictly to the Sodality’s statutes as they have been read out to you by your sponsor?”

  “I do.”

  “And are you prepared to accept the penalties prescribed therein should you prove refractory?”

  “I am.”

  “Swear it.’-’

  “I swear.”

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Are you a maid?”

  “No.”

  “Have you been embuggered?”

  “Often.”

  “Fucked mouthwise?”

  “Often.”

  “Whipped?”

  “Upon occasion.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Juliette.”

  “Your age?”

  “I am eighteen.”

  “Have you been frigged by women?”

  “Many times.”

  “Have you committed crimes?”

  “A few.”

  “Stolen?”

  “Yes.”

  “Attempted the life of a human being?”

  “Aye, I have.”

  “Do you promise never to swerve from the path you have followed until now?”

  “I do swear it.”

  Here a new burst of applause.

  “Will you bring into the Sodality all those related to you by bonds of kinship?”

  “I shall.”

  “Do you agree never to reveal the secrets of the Sodality?”

  “I shall never reveal them, I swear it.”

  “Do you promise to exhibit the completest indulgence toward all the caprices and all the lewd whims of all Sodality members?”

  “I promise it.”

  “Whom do you prefer, men or women?”

  “Where friggery is concerned, I am very fond of women; where fucking, I have a passion for men.”

  My naïveté brought forth a wave of laughter from the corporation.

  “What think you of the lash?”

  “I like to use it and to have it used upon me.”