Letters From Prison (31 page)

1
. Monsieur Le Noir.

2
. Monsieur de Rougemont.

33. To Monsieur Le Noir

February 20, 1781

S
ir:

So long as my punishment was limited to a period of time that might be found reasonably commensurate to some slight misconduct, I suffered in silence. But now that I see that ’tis extending far beyond what fair-minded and equitable people would doubtless have prescribed, and that for this reason I am fully convinced that to vengeance and calumny alone the government offers its protection, I have the right to entreat you, Sir, to come and see me, so that I can prove to you beyond all shadow of a doubt that I do not deserve a treatment as harsh as that to which I am being subjected.

You are not unaware, Sir, that the royal constitution, already completely opposed to everything called
lettres de cachet,
must be even more strongly opposed when one dares use them for the sole purpose of serving the secret hatred between families, or perhaps to further the special interests of their friends. Nor are you unaware that we are not living under an Inquisition in this country, and yet ’tis nothing but purely inquisitorial methods they have used against me these past four years, without ever once deigning to show me any order of the king. In a word, Sir, you know better than I that this is in violation of our laws, and I dare say even against the authority of the monarch, to punish one of his subjects without a proper hearing. If you had been unfairly slandered by unworthy enemies, would you, Sir, be pleased to be denied any opportunity of vindicating yourself? That vindication put a famous magistrate back on the bench. Find it in your heart, therefore, that my vindication also be given a hearing, and that it render unto the State, someone who, if not so beloved and so esteemed, is at least a subject who, like you, yet considers it his greatest glory to devote his attentions, his life, and his children to his country.

If I deserved to lose my life upon a gallows, I ask no pardon, and if I am guilty only of what everybody else indulges in,
¹
and of which, in the position you occupy, you witness a hundred examples every day, I should not be treated so unjustly.

Were you unable to find it in your heart to reply to my letter by a visit, Monsieur, you would lead me to believe that rather than being a father and protector of the downtrodden, you are the agent of their relatives’ tyranny. In which case, you should not be surprised if, once I am out of this place—even if I am compelled to cast myself at the feet of the king to obtain my vengeance—I take matters in my own hands and do whatever it takes, both to recover the honor of which you seem intent on robbing me, and to subject my oppressors to the same treatment I have received from them.

I have the honor to be your most humble and most obedient servant.

de Sade

1
. Namely, consorting with whores. Since the Aix court threw out the more serious charge of poisoning and sodomy, Sade plays on the fact that he is no more guilty than a goodly portion of the aristocracy.

34. To Madame de Sade

MY GRAND LETTER

[February 20, 1781]

I
truly do believe, my dear friend, that your intention would be to instill in me that same respect for your little divinities that you yourself possess to such a profound degree. And because you are going to grovel before that entire crew, you would demand that I do the same! that a-----, that a-----, an-----, a-----, and-----be my gods just as they are yours!
¹
If unfortunately you have got that idea into your head, I beg you to remove it forthwith. Misfortune will never bring me so low;

Though enchained I may be, my heart is yet free.

(Les Arsacides)

and always will be. Even if these accursed chains, yes, even if they bring me to my grave, you will always see me the same. I have the sad misfortune of having received at birth a staunch soul, that has never bent nor ever will. I have no fear of offending or embittering anyone, no matter whom. You have given me too many proofs that my term is set for me to have any doubts on that score: consequently, no one is in a position to either lengthen it or shorten it. Moreover, were it not set, I would not be dependent on these people, but on the king, and he is the one person in the country I respect—he, and the princes of royal blood. Beneath them, I see naught but a blur so indistinct that in this circumstance it were better for me to refrain from looking too closely, for it would reveal a superiority so much in my favor that it would only serve to further confirm my already profound contempt.

You have to feel that ’tis unimaginable to want to treat me as they do and then expect me not to complain; for let’s add two and two for a moment: when a detention has to be as prolonged as mine is, is it not a veritable abomination to try to make it even more horrible by everything your mother has chosen to dream up in order to torment me here? What! ’tis not enough to be deprived of everything that makes life pleasant and worth living, ’tis not enough to be kept from even breathing clean fresh air, to see all one’s desires forever being shattered against four walls, and to spend one’s days so alike one to the other that they resemble those we can expect in the grave? This dreadful torture is not enough, according to that horrid creature: it must be made even worse by everything she can think of to redouble all the horror. But you will agree that only a monster is capable of carrying vengeance that far . . .
But ’tis all in your imagination, you are going to say; people aren't
doing any such thing; all these are figments of your imagination that people in your situation often have.
Figments of my imagination? Really! I shall go to the top of my notebook of observations, which contains no fewer than 56 proofs of the kind I am about to cite to you, from which I shall take only one, and you shall see whether ’tis not venomous rage of an odious shrew that lies behind all these maneuvers that I impute to her, and whether one can properly call them figments of one’s imagination.

You should not for one moment doubt that a prisoner, although he may have good reason to believe his release is still distant, will leap like a starveling at anything even faintly suggesting his term might be less long: ’tis human nature, that, there’s nothing wrong about it: thus ’tis not something someone should be punished for, but rather pitied. Therefore, ’tis an act of manifest cruelty to foment, foster, give rise to initiatives that tend to mislead him. One ought to be exceedingly careful to do the opposite, and basic humanity (were there any here) should at all times act as a constant reminder not to [toy with] the most sensitive of a poor wretch’s feelings; for ’tis clear that the cause of all suicides is hope betrayed. Therefore, one must not foster that hope when it will not happen; and whoever does so is visibly a monster. Hope is the most sensitive part of the soul of him who suffers and is in pain; he who holds out this hope to him, then destroys it, is acting like those demons in Hell who, they say, are forever reopening the same wound, and who take pains to focus on an already open wound rather than on others. That is precisely what your mother has been doing to me for four years: a multitude of fresh hopes month after month. To judge from what these people say, from examining your parcels, your letters, etc., my release is always just around the corner; then, when we come to that corner, all of a sudden, a well-aimed dagger-thrust: and we are off for another long round of jokes and gibes. It seems as though this wicked woman enjoys nothing more than having me build houses of cards, to have the pleasure of knocking them down the moment they are done. Forgetting for a moment all the negative influence this has upon hope, not to mention the great possibility ‘twill have of denaturing it, not to mention the certainty that one will write off hope for the rest of one’s life, there is, you will agree, the far more serious danger of the final excess of despair; and at present I do not for one moment doubt that this is her sole and unique objective, and that, having failed to have me killed, and having left me in the dreadful situation I was in for the five years before I was in prison, she has decided to work on doing me in for perhaps another five years, under more propitious conditions. From the multitude of proofs I have just told you that I have of this barbaric little game she has been playing with me, which consists of lifting me up and then knocking me down, I shall cite you one of the more recent, in order to convince you of what I say.

About six months ago you sent me a curtain for my room; I kept asking the people here to put it up; they never wanted to. What must I conclude from this?
That there is no need to,
which gives rise to hope; they will leave it at that until they figure I have had the time to build my house of cards, and when that day comes, they hang the curtain— and my castle is dashed to pieces. Such are the little games Madame la présidente de Montreuil plays, games she has been enjoying for four years along with the lackeys she is paying to aid and abet her in these kindnesses, people who laugh at her behind her back (at least that is what Marais told me in no uncertain terms, he doubtless being jealous at not being a member of the inner circle) as soon as they receive their presents or money. There are 56 maneuvers of this kind, not counting those yet to come; not that I have entertained 56 different opinions about my release, God forbid! I would have spent my entire life counting and calculating, which I have carefully refrained from doing (you have the proof of my more serious occupations),
²
but I have kept a close eye on matters and I have duly noted that in all likelihood, instead of sand castle number four, the one I am presently on and which, far off though it be, will doubtless crumble like the other three; instead of four, I say, she has been involved in trying to get me to build a good 56. I can’t help wondering whether this is how a sensible woman behaves, an intelligent woman and a woman who, if for no other reason than the ties that bind us, ought to lessen my sufferings instead of augmenting them?
But she is offended, you tell me.
First of all, I deny that; she has been done no injury except insofar as she wanted to be injured, and if she has a quarrel on that score, ’tis solely to her own genius she must look for whatever she may take as a personal affront. But let us suppose that she actually has been offended: does that mean she must seek revenge? A woman so pious, who
outwardly
seems to fulfill all the ceremonial part of her religion, should she turn her back on the foremost and most basic of all its dogmas? But let us allow her vengeance, I shall concede that; but, a prison sentence of this length, a sentence so harsh, is that not revenge enough for her? Does she need more?
Oh ! you are missing the point, you will cut in; all this has been necessary; that’s what it takes for us to win!
To win! Gome, in all fairness now: even supposing I were to get out tomorrow, would you dare say I had won, without fearing that I accuse you of a most furious insolence? Win!—to put somebody in prison for four or five years
over a mere party involving some girls,
exactly like any one of the eighty others that take place every day in Paris! And then to come and tell him how lucky he is to get off with only five years in prison, and that if he has been driven crazy the way he has, ‘twas in order
to win!
No, I banish the very idea, for I am too disgusted by it and I am quite sure you shall never be so brazen as to bring it up again.

Let us go back to something I spoke of a short while ago,
a mere party involving some girls
which, I can see from here, affrights those who despair at being unable to convince me that all the calumnies they accept against me are the gospel truth. My adventures can be reduced to three. I shall pass over the first: that one was wholly Madame la présidente de Montreuil’s doing, and if anybody should have been punished for it, ‘twas she;
³
but in France one does not punish those who have a hundred thousand livres a year income, and below them are
the little victims
whom they can hand over to the voracity of those monsters whose profession is to earn their living from the blood of the misfortunate. They are asked for
their little victims,
they hand them over, and the debt is discharged. That is why I am in prison. The second adventure was the Marseilles incident: I believe there is no point in discussing it, either. I think it has been sufficiently established that nothing but libertinage was involved there, and that whatever of a criminal nature they saw fit to insert into the affair, in order to slate the vengeful thirst of my Provençal enemies, and the rapacity of the chancellor who wanted my title for his son, was nothing but pure invention. And so, as for that one, I think it entirely taken care of by the Vincennes detention
⁴
and the banishment from Marseilles.

Let us then move on to the third. Before starting, I ask your forgiveness for the terms I am going to be obliged to use; I shall do my best to moderate them by using abbreviations. Moreover, between husband and wife one may, when the case requires it, express oneself somewhat more freely than with strangers or ordinary friends. I also ask you to excuse my confessions, but I prefer you think me a libertine rather than a criminal, laid bare, with no effort on my part to disguise it one iota.