Juliette

by Marquis de Sade

  “There’s plain proof you are a rascal,” I said; “were you honest you would prefer to enlighten mankind rather than deceive it; you would tear the blind from their eyes rather than tighten it.”

  “Of course; but I’d starve to death.”

  “And what necessity is there that you live? Is it so urgent that, for the sake of your digestion, fifty million people wander in error?”

  “Yes, because my existence means everything to me, and those fifty million people nothing; because the foremost of Nature’s laws is of self-preservation … at the expense of no matter whom.”

  “You are showing your true colors, Pontiff, that is all I was after. So let us shake hands, since we’re a pair of rogues each as bad as the other, and henceforth an end to all shamming; agreed?”

  “Excellent,” said the Pope, “we’ll concern ourselves with pleasures only.”

  “Very well,” I rejoined, “start by carrying out one of your promises; get me a guide, I wish to tour this place.”

  “I shall guide you through it myself,” said Braschi.

  “This superb palace,” he told me as we walked along, “stands on the site of an ancient one in whose gardens the paths were illuminated at night by the bodies of the early Christians; Nero had them spaced at regular intervals and daubed with pitch. They served as flares.”26

  “Oh, my friend, such a spectacle is made for eyes like mine, a joyous sight it would have been to one animated by my own loathing for your creed and its adepts.”

  “Forget not, little minx,” said the Holy Father, “that ’tis to the head of this religion you are speaking.”

  “He has as little liking for it as I,” was my response, “he knows what it is worth; and esteems it only for the income it yields him. Come, come, my friend, were you able, you would deal just as harshly with the enemies of the religion off which you fatten.”

  “Certainly, Juliette: intolerance is the underlying principle of the Church; without an implacable rigorism, its temples would be quickly in ruins; and where the law is unheeded the sword must smite.”

  “Despotic Braschi!”

  “But how else would you have princes reign? Their power is seated upon mere opinion; let it change and they are undone. Their one means for stabilizing it consists in terrorizing the public, in putting fear into hearts and a cloud over vision, in order that pygmies appear as giants.”

  “Ah, Braschi, I have told you so already, the people are coming to their senses; the days of the tyrants are numbered; the scepters they hold and the irons they impose, all will be shattered upon the altars of Liberty, as the cedar topples before the north wind’s blast. Far too long has despotism deprived them of their rights, the people must inevitably reach out and take them back, a general revolution must inevitably rage over all Europe; all must come tumbling down, shrines and thrones with it, and space must be cleared for double the energy of a Brutus and twice the virtues of a Cato.”

  We were still walking. “A thorough visit of these buildings is no mean undertaking,” Braschi said to me; “the palace contains four thousand four hundred and twenty-two rooms, includes twenty-two courtyards, and its gardens are vast. Let us have a look at this,” said the Pope, leading me into a gallery above the vestibule of St. Peter’s basilica. “From here,” the Pontiff explained, “I shed my blessings upon the world; here, I excommunicate kings; here, I pronounce null and void the vows whereby princes hold nations in fee.”

  “Poor player, you strut upon no very solid stage whose foundations are absurdity; philosophy shall bring all your little theater crashing down.”

  From thence we passed into the celebrated picture gallery. In all Europe there is no room longer, not even the gallery of the Louvre; none contains such fine paintings. While admiring the “Saint Peter of the Three Keys,” “Pontiff,” I said to Braschi, “another monument to your pride?”

  “’Tis an emblem,” the Pope explained, “of the unlimited power Gregory VII and Boniface VIII attributed to themselves.”

  “Holy Father,” said I to the old bishop, “surrender these emblems, put a whip in your gatekeeper’s hand, bare your venerable ass for a beating, and summon in a painter, you’ll at least have the merit of auguring true.”

  We went next into the library laid out in the form of a T. In that library there were a great many cupboards, but few books on display.

  “Everything is false in your house,” I pointed out to Braschi; “you keep three out of four of these bookcases sealed shut lest it be seen they are empty. Deception and fraudulence are everywhere your motto.”

  Upon one of those shelves I found a manuscript of Terence where drawings of the masks to be worn by the actors precede each of the plays. As well, much to my satisfaction, I came across the original letters Henry VIII wrote to Anne Boleyn, the slut with whom he was in love and whom he married despite the Pope; memorable period of the Reformation in England.

  After this we traversed the gardens where groves of orange trees and myrtle were growing and fountains played.

  “The other part of the palace, and it is there our tour will end,” the Holy Father said to me, “is used as a preserve for lust-objects in the one sex and in the other; they are lodged behind bars; some will appear at the supper I have promised you.”

  “Ah, Braschi,” said I, full of enthusiasm, “so you keep things in cages, do you? I trust it is rather a hard life they lead? Do you whip a little?”

  “One inevitably becomes severe as one gets on in years,” good Braschi admitted; “for a man of my age there is no sweeter pleasure; I confess that I prefer it to all the rest.”

  “If you whip it is because you are cruel: fustigation on the part of a libertine is but the vent he gives his ferocity; were he to dare, he would express it in other ways.”

  “Well, Juliette,” was the Holy Father’s pleasant reply, “I am sometimes very daring indeed, as you shall see, yes, as you shall most certainly see.”

  “My friend, let us not forget the treasures I am to examine. You must have gold, your greed is legendary; I share that vice and would fain plunge my hands into heaps of those gleaming, fresh-minted coins that are so agreeable to the touch and to the eye.”

  “We are not far from where they are stored,” said the Pope, leading me down an obscure passageway. We came to a small iron door, he opened it. “Everything the Holy See possesses is here,” my guide continued, ushering me into a vaulted chamber in the center of which were chests containing, in crowns and sequins, between fifty and sixty millions at the very most. “I am afraid I have spent more than I have contributed to the hoard. Sixtus V founded it as a testimonial to the stupidity of Christians.”

  “If there is to be nothing hereditary about your tiara,” said I, “you are great dupes to amass riches in this world; had I been in your place I would have dilapidated the funds long ago. Scatter money to your friends, multiply your pleasures, enjoy yourself without stint, far better that than to leave these sums to accumulate for the conquerors’ taking, since overthrown you shall be. Pontiff, I foretell it to you now, one free nation or several in confederacy, rid of monarchical impediment, shall attack and defeat you; grieved though you must be to hear it, know nevertheless that you are by all odds the last pope the Church of Rome is going to have. What’s to be taken from here?”

  “A thousand sequins.”

  “A thousand sequins! The miserly beggar! Pope, there is a scale standing by, I’ll fill my pockets and let’s see whether I cannot get out of here with three times my weight in gold; you can hardly pay a woman less who has merits like mine.”

  So saying I began to scoop up handfuls of coins.

  “Stay, my dear, you shall fatigue yourself to no purpose; instead, let me give you a certificate for, let us say, ten thousand sequins redeemable upon presentation to my treasurer.”

  “Such an act of generosity touches me very little,” said I, “’tis upon Venus you place these stakes.”

  And as we were leaving that treasure room, the
subdued light favoring my preconceived design, I succeeded in taking an imprint of the key with a bit of wax I had brought for that purpose; Braschi, occupied with his own thoughts, noticed nothing; and we retraced our steps to the apartment in which he had received me.

  “Juliette,” he said then, “although but one of your conditions has been fulfilled so far, you must be content with me; let us now see whether I shall be content with you.”

  And at this the lecher unties my skirt-strings.27

  “But,” say I, “what of the rest?”

  “Since I kept my word on the first article, Juliette, you need not doubt that I shall do as much on the others.”

  The old rake already had me at his disposition; I was bent forward over a sofa while he, the droll fellow, one knee on the floor, was peering narrowly at what seemed to be of extreme interest to him.

  “It is superb,” he declared; “Albani spoke well of it to me, but I anticipated nothing of this degree of superiority.”

  The Pontiff’s kisses waxed gradually more ardent: his tongue thrilled here and there along the perimeter, then danced inside, and I saw one of his hands scurry toward the region of his debilitated manhood. I was all afire to see the prick of the Pope, I craned my head around but in that posture could make out nothing.

  “If,” said I, “you are willing to be disturbed for a moment we might arrange ourselves more conveniently and I will be able to facilitate your enterprise without in the least diverting your homage.”

  Then, helping him recline upon the sofa, I planted my behind over his face and leaned down to frig his member while with the hand not devoted to that chore I stroked his buttocks, then strove to arouse him anally. These divers occupations put me in position to analyze the Holy Father, and I shall describe him to you as best I can.

  Braschi is plump, his buttocks broad, chubby, but firm, so toughened, so calloused by the habit he has of receiving the scourge, that a knife-point would sooner penetrate walrus-hide; his asshole is slack and prodigiously wide, and how could it be otherwise in view of the twenty-five or thirty fuckings it ordinarily gets every day? His prick, once aloft, is not without beauty, it is lean, wiry, clears nicely at the tip, and is somewhere near eight inches long by six in circumference. Hardly had it reared itself when the papal passions received energetic expression: as His Holiness’ brow was wedged between my buttocks, first his teeth, then in short order his nails made themselves felt. So long as ’twas done in playful spirit I held my peace; but when Pius VI began to lose all sense of proportion, I turned around.

  “Braschi, with you I accept the accomplice’s role but I decline that of victim.”

  “When I am hot and when I pay,” the Pope rejoined, “I am not much inclined to split hairs. Shit, Juliette, be a good girl and shit, that will calm me; I worship shit and my discharge is certain if you can supply me some.”

  It being within my power to gratify him, I return to my post; I push, I grunt, I shit; the pontifical prick hardens to such a point I believe it is about to discharge.

  “Ready yourself, be quick,” cries the pig, “I am going to embugger you—”

  “No, you’re not,” say I, “it will sap your strength, our nocturnal orgies will suffer from your thoughtlessness now.”

  “You are mistaken,” the Pope assures me, clinging fast to my two buttocks, “I frequently fuck thirty, forty asses without losing a drop of sperm. Into position, I tell you, bugger you I must, bugger you I shall.”

  What could I reply to that? He was a very determined man; this was confirmed by the state of his prick, at which I glanced again; I offered my ass; Braschi speared it dry and deep. This scraping whence resulted mingled pain and pleasure, the moral irritation resulting from the idea of holding the Pope’s prick in my ass, everything marched me toward happiness: I discharged. My bugger, sensing as much, hugged me frenziedly and drove me hard, he kissed me, he frigged me. But completely in control of his passions, the lecher roused them without giving them any final outlet; after a harrowing fifteen minutes he withdrew.

  “You are delicious,” he affirmed, “I have never fucked a more voluptuous ass. Let us dine. I shall give orders for the execution of the scene you wish to transpire on Saint Peter’s high altar; we shall repair to the basilica after our meal.”

  We were but two at table, and we conducted ourselves like perfect swine. For lewdness there are few people in this world who can compare with Braschi; there are none more schooled in the finer points of debauchery. His is a delicate stomach; he would not touch certain food until it had been prepared for eating, after wetting each morsel with my saliva I would feed it into his mouth, in my mouth were rinsed the wines he afterward drank, he sometimes injected half a bottle of Tokay or sack into my fundament, then swallowed what I flushed forth and if by chance it included a mard or two, he would be in raptures.

  “Oh, Braschi!” I exclaimed during a moment of lucidity, “what would they say, the people upon whom you professionally impose, if they could see you in the midst of these turpitudes?”

  “They would express for me the same contempt I have for them,” Braschi answered, “and despite their pride they would own to their absurdity. But no matter! let’s continue to dazzle and dupe them: the reign of error shall someday come to its end, we must enjoy it while it lasts.”

  “Why yes, yes indeed,” I concurred, “let us fuddle and fool mankind, it asks for no greater service…. Braschi, say now, shall we not immolate a few victims in the temple whither we are soon to go?”

  “Of course we shall,” the Holy Father replied, “blood must flow before orgies are satisfactory. Seated on Tiberius’ throne, I imitate his voluptuous practices; and I too know no more delicious discharge than that expelled in echo to the plaintive accents of the dying.”

  “Do you indulge often in those excesses?”

  “Rarely do I let a day go by without plunging into them, Juliette, and never do I retire for the night with unbloodied hands.”

  “But from where does this monstrous taste come?”

  “From Nature, my child. Murder is one of her laws; whenever she feels the need for murder she inspires in us a longing to commit it, and willy-nilly we obey her. I shall shortly employ more vigorous arguments to demonstrate that this fancied crime is no crime at all; if you desire, I shall perform it. In an effort to accommodate their doctrine to conventional notions, ordinary philosophers have submitted man to Nature; I am prepared to prove to you that man is in no wise dependent upon her.”

  “My friend,” said I, “I remind you of your promise: this dissertation is part of our bargain, pray fulfill it now, we have the time.”

  “As you like,” said the mitred thinker; “I shall ask for your whole attention, the subject demands it.

  “Of all the extravagances into which man’s pride was to lead him, the most absurd was probably the precious case he dared make of his person. Surrounded by creatures worth as much and more than he, he nonetheless considered himself at liberty to make away with those beings which he fancied subordinate to him, the while believing that no penance, no punishment, could wipe clear the crime consisting in an attempt upon his own life. To the initial folly stemming from pride, to that revolting stupidity of considering he was sprung from some divinity, of supposing himself in possession of an immortal soul, to this atrocious blindness he was doubtless obliged to add the other of esteeming his mortal self beyond price. Indeed, how could the beloved masterpiece of a bountiful divinity, how could heaven’s favorite have come to any other conclusion? the severest penalties had incontrovertibly to be prescribed for whoever should wreck such a splendid machine. This machine was sacred; a soul, the brilliant image of a yet more brilliant divinity, animated this construction whose destruction must be the most dreadful crime it would be possible to commit. And even as he reasoned thus, to appease his gluttony he roasted the lamb entire on a spit, he carved into pieces and boiled in a pot this gentle and peaceable lamb, a creature shaped by the same hand that shaped him, his i
nferior simply because differently built. However, had he reflected a little he would have thought a great deal less highly of himself; a rather more philosophical glance cast at the Nature he misunderstood would have caused him to see that, a weak and ill-formed product of that blind mother’s manufacture, he resembled all other creatures, that his condition was bound inextricably to the condition of all others, necessitated like all the others’, and hence not one whit better than theirs.

  “No earthly creature is expressly formed by Nature, none deliberately made by her; all are the result of her laws and her workings, in such sort that, in a world constituted like ours, there had necessarily to be such creatures as we find here; very different creatures probably inhabit other globes, the myriads of globes wherewith space is freighted. But these creatures are neither good nor beautiful, precious nor created; they are the froth, they are the result of Nature’s unthinking operations, they are like vapors which rise up from the liquid in a caldron that is rarefied by heat, whose action drives out the particles of air this liquid contains. This steam is not created, it is resultative, it is heterogeneous, it derives its existence from a foreign element and has in itself no intrinsic value; its being or not has no adverse effect upon the element it emanates from; to this element it adds nothing, owes nothing, this element owes nothing to it. Let some other vibration different from heat modify this element, it will continue to exist in its new modification, and the vapor which resulted from it before will cease to result from it now. Let Nature become subject to other laws, these creatures resulting from the present laws will exist no more under these different ones, but Nature will nonetheless still exist, although by different laws.

  “Man thus has no relationship to Nature, nor Nature to man; Nature cannot bind man by any law, man is in no way dependent upon Nature, neither is answerable to the other, they cannot either harm or help each other; one has produced involuntarily—hence has no real relationship to her product; the other is involuntarily produced—hence has no real relationship to his producer. Once cast, man has nothing further to do with Nature; once Nature has cast him, her control over man ends; he is under the control of his own laws, laws that are inherent in him. With his casting man receives a direct and specific system of laws by which he must abide, under which he must proceed ever after; these laws are those of his personal self-preservation, of his multiplication, laws which refer to him, which are of him, laws which are uniquely his own, vital to him but in no way necessary to Nature, for he is no longer of Nature, no longer in her grip, he is separate from her. He is an entity entirely distinct from-her; of such little usefulness is he to her workings, of such little necessity to her combinations, that whether he were to quadruple his species or annihilate it totally, the universe would not be in the slightest the worse for it. If man destroys himself, he does wrong—in his own eyes. But that is not the view Nature takes of the thing. As she sees it, if he multiplies he does wrong, for he usurps from Nature the honor of a new phenomenon, creatures being the necessary result of her workings. If those creatures that are cast were not to propagate themselves, she would cast new entities and enjoy a faculty she has ceased to be able to exercise. Not that she is unable to recover the use of that faculty, if she wished to have it, but she never does anything needlessly, and so long as the first series of beings propagate themselves by faculties inherent in them, she suspends propagation: our multiplication, only one of the laws inherent in us, is therefore decidedly detrimental to the phenomena whereof Nature is capable.