About the Marquis de Sade

Under the French Monarchy

Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, was born on June 2, 1740 in Paris, France. He came from a family of provincial nobility and received a formal Jesuit education followed by military training at the prestigious academy in Versailles. After serving as an officer in the Seven Years' War, Sade embarked on a notorious libertine lifestyle, engaging in a series of scandalous escapades that repeatedly brought him into conflict with the law.

In 1763, he married Renée-Pélagie de Montreuil, with whom he had three children, but his relentless pursuit of hedonism led him into illicit affairs, orgies, and public scandals. In October of that year, the King of France ordered Sade committed to Vincennes fortress for excesses committed in a brothel he had been frequenting for a month.

On April 3, 1768, Sade lured Rose Keller, a widow, to his country home in Arcueil under the pretense of employment. Once there, he imprisoned and subjected her to beatings, knife wounds, and scalding with hot wax. Keller managed to escape and reported the assault to authorities. The ensuing investigation led to a royal arrest warrant for Sade. Despite the seriousness of the accusations, Madame de Montreuil used her influence to secure Sade’s royal pardon. The parlement of Paris fined him 100 livres and released him under supervision. The scandal tarnished the reputations of both the Sade and Montreuil families.

In June 1772, Sade and his manservant Latour hosted an orgy with four prostitutes in Marseilles, during which Sade offered them Spanish fly-laced pastilles, causing two of them, Marianne Laverne and Marguerite Coste, to fall ill. Coste reported the incident to authorities, leading to an investigation and charges against Sade for sodomy and poisoning. Sade went into hiding, but the Marseilles court sentenced him and Latour to death in absentia and burned them in effigy on the Place des Precheurs in Aix on September 12, 1772. Sade fled to Italy, where Madame de Montreuil arranged his imprisonment in the Fortress of Miolans. He escaped in April 1773.

In 1774, following the death of Louis XV, Madame de Montreuil secured a lettre de cachet from King Louis XVI for Sade’s arrest and indefinite incarceration.(A lettre de cachet was a royal warrant signed by the king of France, countersigned by one of his ministers, and closed with the royal seal. It contained orders enforce actions and judgments that could not be appealed.)

He was warned in advance about the raid and narrowly avoided capture at his home in La Coste. His wife appealed his sentence.

In January 1776, Sade was involved in a violent altercation at his chateau in La Coste when M. Trillet, seeking to retrieve his daughter Catherine (nicknamed Justine), fired a pistol at Sade but missed. After a heated confrontation and a second failed gunshot, Trillet and four companions fled. The following month, on February 13, Sade was arrested in Paris and imprisoned in the fortress of Vincennes. He described his confinement in a letter to his wife, lamenting the harsh conditions, including limited light, minimal exercise, and a sense of being entombed. Although he briefly won a legal victory and escaped custody, Sade was recaptured and returned to Vincennes on September 7, 1776.

In February 1777, Sadeand his wife travelled to Paris to visit her mother. By the time they arrived, she had been dead for three weeks. On February 8, he was arrested under the existing lettre de cachet and imprisoned in the Vincennes fortress.

In 1782, while imprisoned, Sade completed his philosophical work "Dialogue between a Priest and a Dying Man." It was a brief dialogue where a dying libertine debates a priest on the nature of morality, religion, and human freedom. The work critiques organized religion and argues for the primacy of human desires.

On February 29, 1784, he was transferred from Vincennes to the Bastille. By October 22, 1785, he had begun the final revision of his infamous and unfinished manuscript, The 120 Days of Sodom: or, The School for Libertines. It describes the depraved exploits of four wealthy libertines who retreat to a secluded château to indulge in acts of sexual and physical violence against kidnapped victims. The book serves as a grotesque catalog of human depravity, emphasizing the libertines’ pursuit of absolute power and pleasure. Philosophically, it challenges notions of morality and justice by pushing human behavior to its most extreme and nihilistic limits.

During the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Era

On July 2, 1789, the Bastille logbook notes that The Count de Sade shouted several times from the window of the Bastille that the prisoners were being slaughtered and that the people should come to liberate them. After the Bastille's fall, Sade was abruptly transferred to Charenton asylum. His unfinished manuscript for The 120 Days of Sodom remained hidden in a wall in his cell at the Bastille. Sade wept tears of blood over the loss of his masterpiece. He never saw the manuscript again but it would survive. The novel would not be published until 1904.

He was released from the asylum on April 2, 1790 due to the onset of the French Revolution, which brought about a wave of political upheaval and a more lenient attitude towards "madness."

At the start of the revolution, Sade was as a constitutional monarchist. But as the revolution unfolded he embraced the role of radical republican. He renounced his title and held minor administrative roles under the new government.

Sade wrote Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue in 1791. This novel follows the misadventures of Justine, a virtuous young woman whose adherence to morality leads her to suffer a series of horrific abuses at the hands of hypocritical and corrupt figures. The book critiques traditional moral ideals by illustrating how virtue often fails to protect the innocent. Justine’s tragic fate contrasts with the success of her immoral sister, Juliette, highlighting Sade's belief in the triumph of power and selfishness over innocence and virtue.

During the Reign of Terror, Sade became disillusioned with the Revolution's turn towards violence. In December 1793, the revolutionaries accused him of moderatism and imprisoned him. He was released in October 1794 after the Reign of Terror has ended.

In 1795, he wrote Philosophy in the Boudoir, a philosophical dialogue in the form of an erotic play. The story follows a young woman, Eugénie, who is introduced to libertine philosophy by two seasoned libertines, Dolmancé and Madame de Saint-Ange. This work promotes libertinism as a philosophy of absolute freedom and hedonism, with a particular focus on sexual liberation. It critiques societal norms, religion, and the repression of desires, presenting libertine practices as the path to personal enlightenment. It includes the infamous “Fifth Dialogue” containing a lengthy treatise on atheism and Sade’s critique of traditional morality.

In 1797, he released Juliette, or The Prosperities of Vice , a companion piece to Justine. This novel follows Juliette, who rejects morality and embraces libertinism, achieving wealth, power, and success through deceit, murder, and debauchery. Juliette is more expansive and extravagant than Justine, reveling in excess and providing a stark philosophical counterpoint to its counterpart.

During Napoleonic Era (1799-1815), the Napoleonic Consulate cracked down on public immorality and Sade's works were banned for obscenity. In 1801, he was arrested again and spent his final years in Charenton Asylum, where he continued writing and staging plays with the inmates. He died on December 2, 1814, having spent 32 of his 72 years in prison or in mental hospitals. At his death, he was largely despised by society and the literary establishment. His legacy remained hidden or suppressed until the 20th century.

Philosophy

Sade's philosophical worldview was characterized by extreme individualism and radical materialism (i.e., a tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort as more important than spiritual values.) He argued that traditional morality, religion, and social order were artificial constructs that repressed human passions. His writings celebrated the supremacy of individual will and the pursuit of pleasure often to the point of violent excess.

Consent and safety did not figure in the Marquis de Sade’s philosophy. His writings often depict scenarios where these principles are entirely disregarded or even actively violated. Sade’s philosophy emphasized the pursuit of personal pleasure and power above all, even when it came at the expense of others’ well-being, autonomy, or safety.

Sade’s works portray characters who seek pleasure in domination, control, and inflicting suffering, often with a complete disregard for the feelings or physical safety of their victims. In his philosophy, this was justified by an extreme materialism and moral nihilism: he argued that nature is inherently amoral, with no divine or ethical structure governing human behavior. Because he saw human desires as part of this natural order, he reasoned that suppressing any impulse or indulgence—even violent or cruel ones—would be an arbitrary limitation imposed by society.

This philosophy diverges significantly from modern perspectives on sexual ethics, particularly regarding informed consent and mutual respect. Despite his iconic status in the Leather and BDSM communities of the present day, he would not be welcome in either. Sade believed that laws, religion, and social norms were repressive tools that denied people their natural urges. He largely ignored the emotional and physical impact of his proposed behaviors on others. Unlike contemporary discussions of personal freedom, which emphasize consent and respect, Sade's vision of freedom extended only to the individual's desire, even if it meant violating others' autonomy or well-being.

Sadism

The term "Sadism" was derived directly from the Marquis de Sade’s name due to his infamous writings and behavior. The term was first used in a psychological context by the Austrian police physician Richard von Krafft-Ebing in the first edition of his Psychopathia sexualis in 1886. He define Sadism as deriving sexual pleasure from inflicting pain on another person. The term was adopted by others such as Havelock Ellis in Studies in the Psychology of Sex in 1896 and Sigmund Freud in Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie in 1905.

Starting in 1952, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has included the term Sadism in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), but over the decades and various editions the definition has changed. (See A Brief History of Homosexuality and Sadomasochism in the DSM for how the meaning has evolved.)

Legacy and Influence

Though his works remained banned or hidden for over a century, Sade's legacy was re-evaluated in the 20th century by thinkers like Simone de Beauvoir, Georges Bataille, and Michel Foucault.

In her 1951 essay "Must We Burn Sade?," Simone de Beauvoir approached Sade as a complex figure who, by pushing societal boundaries, exposed deep questions about freedom, desire, and the human condition. She suggested that by forcing readers to confront these questions, Sade challenged the complacency of conventional morality and confronted society with its own latent desires for domination and control. She acknowledged his disregard for others' autonomy but valued his critique of authoritarianism and conformity.

Georges Bataille, a French writer and philosopher known for exploring taboo subjects and transgressive behavior, interpreted Sade's works in Literature and Evil. He saw in them a celebration of extreme freedom, a rejection of morality and rationality. He saw Sade as a figure who explored the darkest sides of human desire and power, revealing the inherent violence and irrationality underlying human nature. For Bataille, Sade’s characters’ cruelty and disregard for others’ suffering were not intended to be moral guides but were rather expressions of human freedom taken to its ultimate, horrifying conclusion.

Michel Foucault did not write exclusively on Sade, he analyzed Sade's writings through the lens of power, desire, and societal controlin works like Discipline and Punish and The History of Sexuality. Foucault saw Sade's depictions of torture and cruelty as a kind of inverted mirror of society’s hidden violence and repression. Foucault was interested in how Sade's exploration of extreme freedom challenged societal norms and the power structures that maintain them. Foucault noted that Sade’s works interrogate the limits of freedom by showing what happens when people take freedom and authority to their extreme, turning them against societal norms and expectations. This perspective aligned with Foucault’s broader interest in how institutions—like prisons, schools, and asylums—control and subjugate individuals.

These thinkers, though recognizing the disturbing nature of Sade's work, valued his ability to provoke thought and challenge conventional morality. They saw him as a figure who exposed the darker aspects of human nature and the complexities of power, desire, and freedom.

Despite the controversies surrounding him, the Marquis de Sade remains a complex and influential, if deeply troubling, figure in French history and literature.

Books

Lever, Maurice. Sade: A Biography. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1991.

Schaeffer, Neil. The Marquis de Sade: A Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Du Plessix Gray, Francine. At Home with the Marquis de Sade: A Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999.

Bloch, Iwan. Marquis de Sade: His Life and Works. Translated by James Bruce. New York: The Medical Press, 1931. Originally published in German in 1901.

Related Links

• Marquis de Sade by Maurice Nadeau on Britannica.com
• Who Was the Marquis de Sade? by Tony Perrottet in The Smithsonian Magazine for February 2015.
• ‘The most impure tale ever written’: how The 120 Days of Sodom became a ‘classic’ by Will McMorran in The Guardian on October 7, 2016
• How the Marquis de Sade became a pillar of the French establishment by Laura O’Brien in Apollo on August 10, 2021

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