Letters From Prison

by Marquis de Sade

  7. Sade doubtless means, “I still had more prison time to serve.”

  8. Gaufridy.

  9. That is, when he was brought back to Vincennes in August and reincarcerated in cell number 6.

  8. To Madame de Sade

  October 21, 1778

  Well then, my dear friend, ’tis decided once and for all that, down to the very last moment, all of your letters will be for me so many knife thrusts. Ah! but good God, will you then never weary of this abominable torture, and do you absolutely want to force me, for my peace of mind, to ask to be deprived of what, one might suppose, ought only comfort and console me? ’Tis a most incredible persistence, that! Am I not already miserable enough at having been rearrested, at having to recommence my suffering all over again, and even worse than before, to see the best years of my life wasting away in perpetual irons, without you allowing, nay, striving, to open the wound again and again, by the damnable poison of your venomous letters? When she is with you, ask Mademoiselle Rousset whether I did not tell her that my greatest afflictions have come from no one but you . . . you from whom I ought to expect naught but comfort. ’Tis from you I received and receive the most telling hurts. But who in the world is the person so barbarous, so completely devoid of good sense, as to suggest such behavior to you? And what does he—or they—want unless ’tis to plunge me into despair? First off, ’tis not your mother who is behind it, of that I am now sure. She would be incapable of calculated horror to this nth degree. No soul that ever knew tenderness could have conceived it or even conceive of it. What does this mean: “Your children have gone away for two years; I promised them that upon their return they would join us again, you and me, wherever we might be; they left satisfied they would see you in two years”? I should greatly like you to be in my place, for only a month (without knowing ‘twas to be for so short a time), and have someone write you a sentence like that! You can flatter yourself that in the whole precious collection of lovely epistles I have been getting from you for nearly two years, you have not sent me any whose sharp angles have stuck any deeper into my flesh nor perhaps wrought such havoc in my mind as this, which for the last forty-eight hours it has been my misfortune to have before my eyes. Is there any amphibology, any logogriph, to match it, and did you heat it sufficiently in the forges of the infernal demon who inspired you to write it? He should be proud of his work. I had never yet felt such a deep distress, and that was the final touch needed to finish me off after all I have just suffered . . . And so it will never end and will therefore always be the same thing! In short, what do you mean by that sentence? In God’s name, if there is still a bit of pity left in your heart, if ’tis possible that you listen to it and for one moment free yourself from the demoniacal rage of the scoundrel who is guiding you1—and who, say what you will, I know on very good authority to be never out of your sight—and be counseled (not by your mother, I know that) but by others, and by others than those who, I was warned of it, have hated me most cordially; if, I say, ’tis possible you can remove yourself for a moment from their tyrannical vindictiveness, do me the favor of explaining that sentence to me, in clear and simple terms, whether you intended thereby to advise me that I shall get out of here only in two years? Is that it? Then say so, say it at once. Oh! my God, yes, say it, and no more of this rubbing salt into my wounds and driving me crazy, making me frantic each time I lay eyes on one of your writings. At this point there can no longer be any reason for not letting me know my term. ’Tis clear it has been set, that ’tis a consequence of the verdict, and that like that verdict it has been set. I was informed of the one, why should I not be informed of the other? There is not any need to fiddle over the affair; it has been judged; there is no longer any consideration that might detain, no longer any secret efforts being made, no hidden scheme; in short, there is no longer anything except blatant wickedness that can stand in the way of granting what I so earnestly ask. Am I perhaps sentenced to such and such a term and you hope to whittle it down to some degree? Well, do not tell me what that “some degree” amounts to; I don’t wish to know. If it comes to pass, so much the better! Tell me the worst. That is all I ask of you. In a word, I beg you in the name of your children, in the name of all you hold most sacred, to deliver me from the horrible state I am in, and to inform me of my fate, no matter what it may be. I shall hear it and I shall hear it without complaining, and when I know what it is, however long it may be, my state of mind cannot but be less dreadful than the horrible uncertainty in which I now find myself. Must you absolutely speak in riddles? And is it set in stone that that is the only way you can express yourself? Very well: in your reply to this letter repeat to me: that my children are gone for two years to Vallery; that you don’t know whether you’ve mentioned it to me, but in case you’ve forgotten to do so, you are hereby informing me. Repeat that to me and I shall take it to mean that I have two more years here. Alas! dear God, ’tis only too likely that that is the enormous period I still must endure. If (as I dared hope) I had been exiled to my estates, since my children are at Vallery, who (assuming your mother’s permission) would have prevented me, a few months from now, from paying them a twenty-four hours’ visit, or at least from having them brought to me by the mail coach? The road is so nearby. And one way or another, I would have seen them then. ’Tis therefore clear, and clearer than daylight, that since they are for all intents and purposes on the road to Provence, and since you tell me I shall not see them for two years, therefore, I say, ’tis clear beyond all shadow of doubt that I shall not be traveling along that road for the next two years. Now, since ’tis impossible that, upon getting out of here, I shall go anywhere else than home, since to prevent me from going home would be ruinous, ’tis therefore obvious that, as I shall not be permitted to take the road to Provence for the next two years, that means I shall not be released from here for another two years. This relentless succession of consequences leads us unavoidably to the point, and after having fairly clearly given me to understand that, you therefore risk nothing by telling me that a little more positively, and at least allowing me to get straight in my poor mind something that is not one whit improved by being handled the way it is being handled, not by a long shot, you may be sure. Speak out then, speak out, for once in your life speak out clearly! I beg of you to do so, or you will end up reducing me to the final depths of despair.

  Shall I tell you about the sad little castle in the air I have been building? Alas! I shall tell you about it, however much you may mock me for doing so; but what do you expect me to do here except lay my plans and give birth to fantasies?

  Someone, and most assuredly a well-informed someone, whom I shall not name because he does not want to be compromised, in a word then, a man of substance and a very gallant man to boot, told me that the court had dealt with my affair in accordance with the views of the minister. ’Tis therefore clear that they also concurred on the sentence. Now, when the court pronounced three years’ absence from Marseilles, in all probability that was the term the minister had in mind for my punishment, too. And so I said to myself: there will be three years in irons, but those three years will be at the most six months in prison and the rest in exile on my estate. That did not appear doubtful to me. Judge for yourself therefore the enormous impact your letter had upon me when it arrived. All the while I was free I could not refrain from holding to that opinion, and that verdict of three years was even one of the things which served most to reassure me, for indeed, from the moment there had been agreement between the ministry and the court, how could it make any sense that the court would forbid me from setting foot in Marseilles for three years unless it was certain that during those three years I might have the possibility of going there? It is in the context of this eventuality, I said to myself, that the court pronounced the sentence it laid down. Consequently, I shall therefore be free, for, if the intent was to keep me captive this whole time, what would be the purpose of this further restriction? It would be absurd, preposterous, beyond belief. Onc
e it knows the king, by holding me prisoner, will effectively prevent me from going to Marseilles, why does the court therefore forbid me from going there? This excess of penalties is downright foolishness. Why, by so doing, go and mar a verdict? For that alone makes it look slightly suspicious. And it serves no useful purpose. When one has locked up a person inside a room, the custom is not to shout to him through the door: “Sir, I forbid you to walk out.” ‘Twould be a stupid persiflage, which one cannot imagine coming from our good gentlemen of Aix.2 And yet, if the king’s order is to thus bind me for three years, that is precisely what the judges have done. Therefore, when I was free nothing (and I said it and wrote it to everyone down there) encouraged me more in the belief I was to remain free than this verdict. And once I was rearrested, applying the same analyses, this same verdict persuaded me even more strongly that the king’s chains could not last for three years, since the court had imposed its own verdict for that same period, and because it once again does not stand to reason that the latter would impose its restrictions when it saw that the former had already done so. That, I repeat, is a duplication of penalties, which is absolutely inadmissible. Hence it is clear: either I must be free and without restriction before three years are out, or else the high court of Aix has committed a blunder. And starting from that premise, I believe that it was quite reasonable to estimate six months in prison and a few more months in exile or, at the worst, exile for all the rest of the three years, ridiculous as that would have been. Assuming which, judge if you will the overwhelming effect of your letter suddenly hinting at two years behind bars without counting the exile. That is why I’m in such a frightful state and why I ask upon bended knee that you speak clearly to me.

  And here’s a little letter for those poor little creatures I love more than you can believe. Were I to be set free tomorrow, I would still find it a terrible torture knowing I must be another two years without seeing them. I was scarce prepared for this. I was right when all last year I dreamed that when I next saw them they would be all grown up. Ah, good God! Surely they’ll not recognize me. ’Tis hardly worthwhile having children if you have no opportunity ever to enjoy them; for ’tis now the moment when they give true pleasure; later on, nothing but trouble. I ask you most earnestly to offer your mother and father my heartfelt thanks for the latest kindnesses they are bestowing upon those poor children. I cannot tell you how much this both pains and pleases me, for I find we are like those poor creatures who, in the presence of those who take care of their children, weep tears of gratitude and at the same time tears of despair at being deprived of their own through lack of fortune, and prevented from giving them the care they would like. I do not know whether my comparison will strike you in the way it affects me, nor do I know what name I could give the tears I shed as I write this.

  What do you mean when you say that our eldest has promise of being employed after these two years of study? But, my dear friend, he will then be only thirteen, and at thirteen one’s proper place is in an academy. Even assuming someone was recommending him, could he take up some position before he completed his schooling?3

  In due course, you will explain that to me. Send your mother my thousand good wishes, if you will. Please assure her and reassure her of my fondness and my respect. I dare not write to her, since she does not read my letters, but I would consider it a great favor, and a great comfort to me in my misery, if you could soften her heart, and get her permission for me to write her.4 Let her judge me as I am since my return here . . . but why with such delay? because, alas! I was not enlightened until two days before my unfortunate catastrophe. But let her judge me since this return, and she will see whether or not I am true to my word.

  I am distressed and surprised to hear that Milli Rousset is not yet with you. Give her my fondest regards when she comes, and love her well, hers is a most rare and precious heart. It worries me that she is so slow in arriving. That sets my mind to conjuring up further dark conjectures, not about her, God preserve me, but about my unfortunate and sad fate. Oh, how I need some fresh air! I am dying of migraines and vapors. I strongly approve of la Langevin5 accompanying your children, and also of her taking care of the little one.6 I don’t know whether I shall become fond of her, I mean the little one, but she does not touch me like the two others. I have answered everything that concerns Gaufridy and business. I forgot to say that Ripert must be obliged to renew his lease, and that lots of vines must be planted at Piedmarin.

  I enclose a kiss.

  1. Sade is grasping at straws. He cannot imagine his wife is capable of making such epistolary lapses as telling him his children are being sent away for two years—from which he deduces he will be at Vincennes at least that long—on her own.

  2. The judges of the appellate court.

  3. Sade is doubtless recalling his own father’s decision to remove him from school at the age of fourteen.

  4. Madame de Montreuil had indicated that she would not reply to any further letters from her son-in-law, and indeed forbade him from writing her.

  5. The Sade children’s governess. Sade had three children, two boys and a girl. The oldest, Louis-Marie, was born on August 27, 1767. His second son, Donatien-Claude-Armand, was born on June 27, 1769. His daughter, Madeleine-Laure, was born on April 17, 1771.

  6. That is, Madeleine-Laure, who was only five when Sade entered Vincennes.

  9. To Madame de Sade

  [February 8, 1779]

  There you go again suffering a charming attack of deaf ear to the errands I asked you to do. ’Tis most kind, most clever, most gallant. The only thing is, it is becoming overly monotonous. This delightful signal recurs all too often. Thus it ceases to be natural as you would like it to be. Everything that is affected ceases to be natural, and remember the importance of injecting naturalness into the signal. For if I were so unfortunate as to venture a guess, if by mishap the signal made no sense, and if it no longer had this great look of simplicity so essential to everything we call signals, where would we then be? All would be lost, confusion would reign, lightning would strike, Madame la présidente would shit no more. ’Tis perhaps that I own the thing I most delight in seeing: that awkwardness with which you all—all, for you are all signal-making animals—do your best to look natural: things are never done on purpose; ’tis always chance that produces them; and one can never fathom how I can perceive artificiality therein. There’s the prisoners’ mind for you: they see everything that way. And other similar remarks with which they try to conceal the signal as soon as it is made. But once again, my worthy signal-makers, don’t you really know that lies and nature are like oil and water, and that the more one strives to give the latter an appearance of the former, the more clumsy and ridiculous one becomes? But surely you do not know that, and there are doubtless many other things you do not know either.

  For a signal-maker must by his very nature be exceedingly illiterate, exceedingly ignorant, dull as can be, very dim-witted, very clumsy, very pedantic, very idiotic, and a complete bore.

  Fortunately, I still have the original copy of the errands you have been so kind as to keep putting off for almost six weeks. I shall therefore send it to you, but if I do I shall have no copy for myself. If you fail to have it taken care of this time I shall be unable to remember what they were.

  So tell that rascal who scribbles, that ne’er-do-well blockhead, that he damn well better remember that when he was cleaning boots in front of the police station he would get only two half-farthings for a job poorly done. On the same subject, remind him that the présidente, who, they say, has him come every week to have his morning chocolate at the foot of her bed, is not going to pay him, or accord him her ample favors, when he performs so poorly. For his duty is to rub out the bad and to pass along the good to you: it follows therefore that no list of errands should ever be kept from getting through to you: for in a list of errands I do not say that Rougemont1 is a m-----f-----, that the présidente is a w——, that S[artine]2 is the son of an alguazil3 of
the Inquisition in Madrid, that Boucher is a toady, that Albaret4 is a catam——. No, I say none of that in my lists of errands! I only say it in my letters. Therefore, only my letters are to be scribbled, and the lists should be left intact.

  Kindly see to it that the attached bill is paid immediately, so that I am not made to ask for charity in order to obtain the things I need; which is always what happens until you pay the bill.

  Kindly also send me the plays I already asked for, especially Petrarch’s L’Inconséquent and L’Opera. I have the honor of giving you my most authentic word that all the plays I have asked you for are very much in print. I should hope that you have nothing so certainly stamped on your rear end as those texts are printed on paper.

  1. The warden of Vincennes. Sade’s elisions are so obvious it is clear he is simply poking fun at his tormentors . . . or at his censors.

  2. The former lieutenant-general of the Paris police, who took his orders directly from the king’s ministers. For the past five years he had been minister of the navy.

  3. Spanish for “policeman”: Sade refers to those who acted as torturers during the Spanish Inquisition.

  4. Albaret is a family retainer of the Montreuils, whom Sade disdains as a lackey of la présidente.

  10. To Madame de Sade

  [February 17, 1779]

  I answer you with my customary reliability, my dear friend, for nothing is easier for you than to count my letters and see whether any are missing: you have but to count your own.

  I am most assuredly not incapable of writing you, and the day I am, for fear of worrying you, knowing how you feel about me, I shall manage so well that you won’t even notice it. But please do tell me what you mean when you keep on saying, “If you are unable to write to me, have a letter written?” Doubtless, you think I have all sorts of secretaries at my beck and call: alas, I am a far cry from having such a luxury when my most elementary needs are scarce fulfilled! A man, always in a great hurry, appears four times a day in my room, the first time being at dawn, to ask me whether I had a good night’s sleep (you see how highly considerate they are); the other times, to bring me food, etc. Seven full minutes in all is the exact length of time he spends with me during these four visits; and then ’tis over: Die, if you like, of boredom and a broken heart; for that matter, we couldn’t care one whit. What in the world were you thinking, secretaries at one’s beck and call, when one is reduced to the state I am in! But, you may perhaps object, you didn’t tell me such things in the past. . . Eh! maybe not, but in truth they used to take better care of me then than they presently do; in the past I was allowed more frequent walks; I was never left to eat alone; I was in a good room where I had a fine fire blazing. . . And at present, nobody keeps me company when I eat; many fewer walks; and lodged in the dampest cell in the dungeon (for ’tis from the humidity all my headaches stem). And, as a further pleasure, the impossibility of obtaining any heat: for as it is I have not yet lit a fire all winter, and I can safely say at this point that I’ll light none. So that is how I am, my dear friend. But at present they have no further need of me: my case is closed. If I die, so much the better; good riddance . . . And I am quite convinced that, when all is said and done, they would just as soon be rid of me. And you don’t understand that in such a situation one urgently asks to be set free or be told, at the very least, for how much longer one is to be here? One would have to be one’s own worst enemy not to focus upon that sole idea, to be as much one’s own enemy as mine are, both those who keep me here and those who refuse to grant me the unique consolation I ask for . . . You simply do not know, you are going to tell me! If you do not, how is it you try and indicate it to me? Don’t tell such a lie, in God’s name! Don’t repeat it to me, it makes my blood boil. I shall prove to you beyond a shadow of a doubt that you knew as of February 14, 1777,1 that I was going to be summoned before my judges on June 14, 1778.2 Now, if you were so sure when the first part of my detention was due to end, how do you expect to convince me that you do not know the length of the second? But what am I saying?. . . Alas! you do not refuse to tell me what it is, and in fact you do tell me quite as emphatically and as expressively as you revealed the sixteen months to me with your number 22. Could anything on earth be clearer than the date of Saturday, February 22, No. 3 finally?3 After that, to doubt that the date of my release is anything but February 22, 1780, would surely be to labor under a very fatal illusion. But fearing that I not be sufficiently convinced, you had the goodness, very shortly thereafter, to send me three blank documents to sign, assuring me they were to run for three years. And today, renewing this charming signal once again, today, on the day when precisely two years have passed and one remains, you again clamor for my signature to another power of attorney! and you would have me doubt after such an obvious signal? No, no, no, not for one minute do I doubt that I have still another wretched year to endure here. ’Tis pointless for you to go on about it any further; I understand, pray don’t remind me again of that dreadful memory. What I find outrageous, and what I shall never forgive those who do it, is to try and destroy this idea instead of bolstering it. When, from the very start, you made me understand so clearly those three years, why, whenever I alluded to them, did they reply to me: What an idea! Three years, ’tis impossible! A few months at the very most. . .