17. Adélaïde de Miramas, ou le Fanatisme protestan. Historiette.
18. Les Délassements du libertin, ou la Neuvaine de Cythère.
19. Les Caprices, ou un peu de tout. Political work.
20. Les Conversations du château de Charmelle. The first draft of Les Journées de Florbelle.
21. Les Journées de Florbelle, ou la Nature dévoilée, suivies des Mémoires de l’abbé de Modose et des Aventures d’Émilie de Volnange servant de preuves aux assertions, ouvrage orné de deux cents gravures. This immense work, contained in over a hundred notebooks, according to Lely’s estimate, was burned by the police at the request and in the presence of Sade’s son, Donatien-Claude-Armand.
22. Conrad ou le Jaloux en délire. Four-volume novel. The manuscript, according to La Biographie Michaud, was “seized at the time the Marquis was taken to Charenton.”
23. Marcel ou le Cordelier. Four-volume novel.
24. Mes Confessions. Two volumes. It is thought that diaries Sade kept during his thirteen-year detention at Vincennes and in the Bastille were to have provided some of the contents of these Confessions.
25. Réfutation de Fénelon. One-volume polemic.
Notes
Notes for Part One
1 The vampire drank the blood from corpses, God causes that of men to be spilt; examination reveals both to be figments of disordered imagination; may we not justifiably call the one by the other’s name?
2 How else would they ever survive? Only two categories of individuals are apt to find religious systems at all to their liking: firstly, that which these absurdities fatten; and secondly, that made up of imbeciles who unfailingly believe all they’re told and never examine anything critically. But I defy any thinking being, any man possessed of an ounce of wit, to maintain that he in good faith believes these religious atrocities.
3 May we refresh the reader’s memory, who may have forgot that the said Volmar is a charming nun of twenty-one years; and that Flavie is a pensionnaire aged sixteen and extremely fair of face and figure.
4 Gentle and most lovable creatures whom libertinage, laziness, or adversity has reduced to the lucrative and delicious estate of whores, pay closest heed to this counsel; well you see that here it is no less than the fruit of much wisdom and broad experience. Ass-fuck, my fair friends, ’tis the one way to amuse yourselves and prosper. Remember that they who bar you this pleasure are moved by nought but idiotic prejudice, unless it be by basest jealousy. You fastidious and sensitive wives who read me, accept the same advice; do as did versatile Proteus, be now this, now that, with your husbands and, gratifying them in every manner and at every turn, you’ll have them all to yourselves. Be most certain of it: of all the resources coquetry offers you, buggery is at once the safest and most winning. And you young girls, seduced in the bower of your innocence, remember well that by presenting only your ass for a target you infinitely lessen the risks you run, both as touches your honor and your health: no offspring, virtually never any illnesses, and pleasures a thousand-fold sweeter.
5 Solitary, man blushes at nothing; modesty grips him only when he is surprised in the act, which proves that modesty is a ridiculous prejudice, absolutely unrecognized by, absolutely alien to, Nature. Man is impudicious born, his impudicity he has from Nature; civilization may tamper with her laws, but never shall civilization extirpate them from the philosopher’s soul. “Hominem planto,” said Diogenes, as he fucked by the side of the road; and why be more eager to conceal oneself when planting a man than a cabbage?
6 It should be remarked that Justine’s memoirs and those of her sister were written prior to the Revolution.
7 Oh, mortal man! you believe it a crime against Nature you commit when you take an opposing stand to propagation or when you destroy the matured fruit of your loins, and never does it occur to you that the destruction of a thousand, nay, of a million times as many mortals as are now on the earth’s surface would cost Nature not a single tear and would introduce not the slightest change in the regularity of her functions; ’tis thus not for us that all has been wrought, and if we did not exist at all, all else would be as now it is notwithstanding. What then are we in Nature’s eyes? and how dare we make such a great case of our insignificant selves?
8 It flourishes in Persia too. Likewise, also, do the Brahmins forgather, to give each other their wives, their daughters, their sisters to be fucked reciprocally.
Among the Bretons of old, eight or ten husbands would convene and put their wives at the disposal of the company; selfish interests, factions discourage these delicious traffickings here in France; and I ask: when shall we be philosophers enough to establish them?
9 See Cérémonies réligieuses, Vol. VI, p. 300.
10 Such is probably the best and wisest of all man-made laws; an unpublic, furtive crime ought to be punished unpublicly, furtively, and vengeance therefor ought to be tasted by him alone and in private whom the deed has outraged.
11 All these laws owe their origin to nought but pride and lewdness.
12 It is very visibly to the rural situation prevailing under the ancien régime that the speaker refers here; the peasants sometimes knew hardship then, but those of today, bloated with luxuries and insolence, can no longer serve as examples. (Publisher’s note.) [Actually, author’s note—Tr.]
12a The equality prescribed by the Revolution is simply the weak man’s revenge upon the strong; it’s just what we saw in the past, but in reverse; that everyone should have his turn is only meet. And it shall be turnabout again tomorrow, for nothing in Nature is stable and the governments men direct are bound to prove as changeable and ephemeral as they. (Supplementary note.)
13 We owe the law of the talion to the indolence and imbecility of legislators. How much simpler they found it to chortle An eye for an eye than intelligently and equitably to proportion the punishment to the offense. The latter proceeding requires superior intellectual endowments and, save for three or four exceptional cases, I know of no French lawmaker during the past eighteen hundred years who has been able to display even a rudimentary common sense.
14 The father of Henry IV had the same taste.
15 Prudish, God-fearing, or otherwise timorous women, make daily and confident use of these counsels, ’tis for you the author intends them.
16 Beloved La Mettrie, learned Helvetius, sage and perspicacious Montesquieu I having so profoundly apprehended this truth, why did you not set it forth in so many words in your immortal writings? O century of ignorance and tyranny, what a grave disservice you have done the human understanding, and in what slavery you have maintained the world’s greatest minds! Let us then speak forthrightly today, since we are at liberty to do so; and since we owe mankind the truth, let us have the courage to reveal it entire.
17 Highly entertaining, don’t you agree, this profusion of laws that man enacts every day in order to promote his happiness, although there’s not a one amongst them all which, to the contrary, does not deprive him of some part of the happiness he already has. The purpose of all these laws? But do you ask? Rogues must not be denied their profits, and fools have got to be subjugated—there, in a nutshell, you have the whole secret of our human civilization.
18 Aristotle, in his Poetics, would have it that the aim of a poet’s efforts is to cure us of fear and pity, which the philosopher considers the source of all the ills which afflict man; and, one might add, they are also the source of all his vices.
19 Of all edibles probably the best for ensuring abundance and density to the spermatic fluid. Nothing more absurd than our queasiness on this subject; a little experience will make short shrift of it; once one has sampled such meats, one’s palate rejects all others as insufferable. (Upon this subject, see Paw, Recherches sur les Indiens, Egyptiens, Américains, etc.)
20 Several Parisian brothels feature avisodomy; the girl holds the bird’s neck locked between her thighs, you have her ass straight ahead of you for prospect, and she cuts the bird’s throat the same moment you dischar
ge. Of this fantasy being enacted we may perhaps soon have an example.
21 There are any number of curiously organized people whom such sights could very much arouse indeed and who, seeing a well-worn ass, might merely regret not having been partly responsible for its condition.
Notes for Part Two
1 The paradox is readily to be explained: one does that which no one else is able to do; hence, one is unique in one’s species. It is this singularity pride feeds upon.
2 There, by such tokens may you recognize them, those monsters that abounded under the ancien régime and personified it. We have not promised to portray them as beauties, but authentically; we shall keep our word.
3 This system will be amply developed further.
4 See Mémoires de la Marquise de Frène; Dictionnaire des Hommes illustres, etc.
5 We know that Sainte-Croix, Madame Brinvilliers’ lover, perished while concocting a powerful poison (we give the recipe below). He had put on a glass face-protector to keep from inhaling the effluvia of the brew: so active was the venom, it shattered the mask, and the chemist was undone. As soon as she heard of Sainte-Croix’ misadventure, Brinvilliers unwisely rushed to his house and ordered the servants to turn over to her the casket in which her lover stored his other preparations—that was her fatal error. Later, this casket was conveyed to the Bastille, and its contents were made extensive use of by all the members of the family of Louis XV.
This celebrated woman was also convicted of having poisoned her two brothers and her sister and was subsequently beheaded, in the year 1679.
6 Here the allusion is to the Marshal.
7 Brantôme’s expression is tordions. For the reference, see note below.
8 Book I of Les Vies des Dames galantes of his time, London edition, 1666, 12mo. It would perhaps have been preferable had we extracted verbatim out of the author cited; we have not done so for two reasons: of these, the first is that quotations always spoil the appearance of the printed page; the second, that Brantome merely sketched what we have thought desirable to paint in all its colors, and in all its truth.
9 All this is but a mild foretaste of what subsequent volumes will provide the reader upon this vital topic.
10 Further light will be shed upon these strange matters.
11 Hot-blooded and lewdly disposed ladies, these are words to the wise, hark attentively to them: they are addressed not only to Juliette but to yourselves also; if your intelligence is in any sense comparable to hers, you’ll not fail to extract great benefit from them. In writing we are moved by an ardent desire for your happiness; a happiness you’ll never attain, no, never shall you attain it, unless you base your behavior upon this excellent advice, and upon it alone.
12 “Hell,” in the words of one clever writer, “is the stove upon which the sacerdotal pot is kept boiling; that kitchen was built for the feeding of priests; it’s in order that they fare handsomely the Eternal Father, their chief cook, spits and roasts those of his children who have failed to pay all due attention to their lessons; the feasting table is set, the elect are forgathered, they’ll be served grilled unbelievers, fricasseed millionaires, financiers in gravy,” etc., etc. See The Portable Theology, p. 106.
13 Eusebius tells us (in his History, lib. iii: cap. 25) that the Epistle of James, that of Jude, the Second of St. Peter, the Second and Third of St. John, the Acts of St. Paul, the Revelation of St. Peter, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Apostolic Institutions, and the Book of the Apocalypse were none of them recognized in his day.
14 Ecclesiastes 3: 18–20.
15 O thou! who, ’tis alleged, hast created all that in the world there be; thou, of whom I have no certain conception, none, not even the tiniest; thou whom I know of through divers readings and through what mortal men, who are every day in error, may have told me about thee; thou weird and fantastical being denominated God, I formally declare herewith, authentically and publicly, that in thee I have not the faintest hint of belief, and this for the excellent reason that nowhere, neither in my heart nor in my mind nor in my soul, do I find anything that persuades me of an absurd existence, evidence for the reality of which is absolutely lacking in the outside world also. If I am mistaken, and if when I am come to the end of my days thou shalt prove me wrong, and if then (which is so doubtful, being in contradiction to all the laws of probability and logic) thou shalt convince me of this existence I so stoutly deny now, what will happen? Thou shalt render happiness to me or unhappiness. Thou makest me happy, then I shall acknowledge thee, I shall cherish thee; if unhappy, then I shall abhor and hate thee; since ’tis obvious no reasonable man can reckon otherwise, how is it, with the power that is said to constitute the foremost of thine attributes, if thou dost exist, how, I say, canst thou allow man an option so damaging to thy glory?
16 Lacus Asphaltites presently covers the site of Sodom and Gomorrah, neither of which is afire any more; the flames sometimes noticed thereabouts come from volcanoes in the vicinity, quite as Etna and Vesuvius yet smolder and erupt fire. The cities in question never burned in any other way.
17 Who are the true and the only troublemakers in society? The priests. Who are they who daily debauch our wives and children? The priests. Who are the sworn enemies, the most dangerous enemies of every government? The priests. Who breed faction, strife, foment civil wars? The priests. Who are ever at work stinking the air with falsehoods, befouling the scene with frauds? The priests. Who rob us continually, from cradle to grave? The priests. Who abuse our confidence, cheat and trick us from dawn to dark of every day? The priests. Who most resolutely labor at the total extinction of the human race? The priests. Who are most sullied with crimes and infamies? The priests. Which are the most malevolent, the most vindictive, the most ferocious men on earth? The priests. And we hesitate to exterminate this pestilential vermin off the face of the earth! … Why then, we richly deserve everything that ails us.
Notes for Part Three
1 The proponents of that absurd doctrine of equality will always be recruited from the ranks of the weak; it is never espoused save by him who, unable to rise to the class of the strong, can at least find comfort in pulling that class down to his own level; but of all theories this one is the most derisory, the most unnatural; and it is nowhere current except with the viler underbred sort who, moreover, and of this you may rest assured, will abandon it once they’ve got a little gilt on their rags.
2 You voluptuous women, you philosophically-minded women who deign to read us, it is once again to you this is addressed: profit herefrom, let them not be for nought, our efforts to enlighten you. Never will true pleasure be known to you unless you accept wholly and blindly these excellent suggestions; and certain you may be that in making them we are interested solely in your happiness.
3 Almost all chaste women die young, or go mad, or become sickly and wither early away. Furthermore, they are all ill-natured, testy, forward, and rude; they are unbearable in society.
4 That which you enjoy doing you always do well; and the reader ought not to forget Juliette’s affirmation, to wit, that her greatest delight consisted in frigging pricks. The statement comes as no surprise, for what else is so voluptuous? To what joys does one not thrill, indeed, at the sight of a handsome member rearing in answer to the lubricious sensations one imparts to it! How flattering to one’s pride, how stirring thus to observe one’s handiwork take shape! And the exhilaration of this creative activity, especially as the task nears completion; who is there who can refrain from discharging himself upon seeing spring forth those divine spurts of semen? Ah, need one be a woman to taste this pleasure? What man, be he only mildly sensual, is unable to appreciate it? and who, at least once in his life, has not laid an affectionate hand upon some other prick than his own?
5 Sometimes ascribed, by his denigrators, to Rétif de la Bretonne.—Tr.
6 The renowned Caylus contributed the engravings.
7 No, nothing, not even a legislator. Very conclusive evidence of the misjudgment and the fo
lly which, in France, characterized the year 1789 is supplied in the ridiculous enthusiasm stirred up by that miserable monarchist spy. What today is the general opinion of that unwell and exceedingly unclever individual? He is considered a knave, a traitor, and a dunce.
8 See, set forth above, the natural philosophy accounting for these effects.
9 In such sort that these two winning creatures, not counting oral incursions—for mouth-fucking produces upon the fucked too faint an impression to merit consideration here—had, at this stage, been fucked, Clairwil one hundred and eighty-five times and Juliette one hundred and ninety-two, this both cuntwise and asswardly. We have deemed it necessary to provide this reckoning rather than have ladies interrupt their reading to establish a tally, as otherwise they would most assuredly be inclined to do. So offer us your thanks, mesdames, and endeavor to outshine our heroines, we ask no more of you; for your instruction, your sensations, and your happiness are in verity the sole objects for whose sake some wearisome efforts are undertaken; and if you damned us in Justine, our hope is that Juliette will earn us your blessings.
10 “We may with the authority of experience unhesitatingly affirm and guarantee that the woman well enough constituted to make trial of this method will extract therefrom sensations so highly flavored, vibrations so compelling that it is not easily practiced without loss of consciousness; if she can secure the collaboration of a third man capable of address enough to embugger her in the meantime, she will then be sure of tasting the most violent pleasure that can possibly be procured by our sex.” (From a note communicated by a lady of thirty years, who elsewhere declares having enjoyed this experience upon better than one hundred separate occasions.)
11 Simply compare the oceans of blood these knaves have spilled over the course of eighteen centuries with the lakes of it promised by Belmor’s measures, and one cannot but conclude that in qualifying his remedy as violent, the Comte speaks with a touch of irony. For no juster measures have ever been proposed, and peace shall not reign among men until this one is adopted and carried ruthlessly out.
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