Read Online Letters From Prison by Marquis de Sade - Free Book Online
Authors: Marquis de Sade
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have laid the foundation [to reform me]; my soul had not yet become hardened . . .” He dreams of a cure, which, it seems to him, is still possible. . . .
When he enters Vincennes, Sade is not the theorist of evil, the satanic genius that both his devotees and detractors would like us to believe. He is a man far too often invaded by his demons, who lead him into the most shameful follies, and he doubtless makes the most of them and through them satisfies both his sensuality and his pride; but he is also a man who, in his hours of sangfroid and lucidity, realizes the true character of his crises and, far from drawing any philosophy from them, would on the contrary prefer to conceal them.
While prison for Sade, as for most people, is humiliating, infuriating, stifling, maddening—and the letters reflect all this—he has the advantage that, in preparing his revenge, he can channel his boundless energy, his insatiable appetite, his unique experience, and considerable erudition, into a vast, creative act.
Sade is a man of many guises, and like a stag at bay, he will resort to any stratagem, any artifice, to attain his end, which is to regain his freedom. But below the surface of his immediate purpose the essence of the man does emerge in these letters. Both he and Renée-Pélagie know that their every missive will be read by not one but several watchdogs; therefore they constantly have to resort to subterfuge, to pseudonyms and code names, numbers and signals, many of which are often misread and misunderstood, especially by the prisoner. They also write each other at times in invisible ink, inserted either between the visible lines or on a partially blank page at the end of a letter, the purpose being, especially for Madame de Sade, to feed information that the prison censors would not have let pass. Later Sade would reproach his wife for failing to use this subterfuge judiciously, because, he said, her invisible ink jottings were most often nothing but idle banter, whereas if she had used the system properly it could have provided him much needed and much desired information, especially the date of his release, with which he was understandably obsessed.
Doubtless because of that obsession, Sade developed another, which lasted throughout his years in Vincennes and the Bastille and disappeared as soon as he was free, namely a fixation on “signals” in the letters he received from his wife. He would count the number of lines on a page or in an entire letter, the number of times a word or phrase recurred, he would seize on a word that implied or suggested a number or figure, and from these “clues” try to deduce some meaning. In most of these signals he was searching for the date, the month, the year of his release, which he was sure the présidente, and therefore his wife, knew for certain and was refusing to tell him. But he was also searching in these signals for secret information the censors would not allow: when his walks, which were often restricted or eliminated, would be restored; when Renée-Pélagie would be allowed to come and see him; when certain errands and commissions he had requested would be fulfilled. The problem was, his wife maintained—and one has to believe her—that she never sent him any signals, that it was all in his own mind. Sade would for a time believe her and agree to cease combing her letters for these arcane signs, but then he would revert. “You promised not to search my letter for signals,” she wrote him two years after his incarceration in Vincennes, “and then you keep going back on your word. Be assured, my dear friend, that if I could tell you what you want to know [the date of his release] I would not use signs. I would state things very clearly.”
Concerning these “numbers,” these “signals,” these “ciphers” Sade again and again refers to in his letters (and in his “Note Concerning My Detention”), Gilbert Lely writes (L’ Aigle, Mademoiselle, pages 153-54):
When he enters Vincennes, Sade is not the theorist of evil, the satanic genius that both his devotees and detractors would like us to believe. He is a man far too often invaded by his demons, who lead him into the most shameful follies, and he doubtless makes the most of them and through them satisfies both his sensuality and his pride; but he is also a man who, in his hours of sangfroid and lucidity, realizes the true character of his crises and, far from drawing any philosophy from them, would on the contrary prefer to conceal them.
While prison for Sade, as for most people, is humiliating, infuriating, stifling, maddening—and the letters reflect all this—he has the advantage that, in preparing his revenge, he can channel his boundless energy, his insatiable appetite, his unique experience, and considerable erudition, into a vast, creative act.
Sade is a man of many guises, and like a stag at bay, he will resort to any stratagem, any artifice, to attain his end, which is to regain his freedom. But below the surface of his immediate purpose the essence of the man does emerge in these letters. Both he and Renée-Pélagie know that their every missive will be read by not one but several watchdogs; therefore they constantly have to resort to subterfuge, to pseudonyms and code names, numbers and signals, many of which are often misread and misunderstood, especially by the prisoner. They also write each other at times in invisible ink, inserted either between the visible lines or on a partially blank page at the end of a letter, the purpose being, especially for Madame de Sade, to feed information that the prison censors would not have let pass. Later Sade would reproach his wife for failing to use this subterfuge judiciously, because, he said, her invisible ink jottings were most often nothing but idle banter, whereas if she had used the system properly it could have provided him much needed and much desired information, especially the date of his release, with which he was understandably obsessed.
Doubtless because of that obsession, Sade developed another, which lasted throughout his years in Vincennes and the Bastille and disappeared as soon as he was free, namely a fixation on “signals” in the letters he received from his wife. He would count the number of lines on a page or in an entire letter, the number of times a word or phrase recurred, he would seize on a word that implied or suggested a number or figure, and from these “clues” try to deduce some meaning. In most of these signals he was searching for the date, the month, the year of his release, which he was sure the présidente, and therefore his wife, knew for certain and was refusing to tell him. But he was also searching in these signals for secret information the censors would not allow: when his walks, which were often restricted or eliminated, would be restored; when Renée-Pélagie would be allowed to come and see him; when certain errands and commissions he had requested would be fulfilled. The problem was, his wife maintained—and one has to believe her—that she never sent him any signals, that it was all in his own mind. Sade would for a time believe her and agree to cease combing her letters for these arcane signs, but then he would revert. “You promised not to search my letter for signals,” she wrote him two years after his incarceration in Vincennes, “and then you keep going back on your word. Be assured, my dear friend, that if I could tell you what you want to know [the date of his release] I would not use signs. I would state things very clearly.”
Concerning these “numbers,” these “signals,” these “ciphers” Sade again and again refers to in his letters (and in his “Note Concerning My Detention”), Gilbert Lely writes (L’ Aigle, Mademoiselle, pages 153-54):
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