Read Online Letters From Prison by Marquis de Sade - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Marquis de Sade
Ads: Link
get. In the letters to his wife, his chief correspondent and confidante, he often expresses his irritation, his frustration, even his hate for her entire clan, but more often it is affection, gratitude, and love that informs them. Renée-Pélagie was the enduring love of his life: 13 his passions were many and varied, but she alone remained true to him, and he both recognized and appreciated that. The terms of endearment he used to her are touching and sincere: my pet, my turtle dove, miracle of Nature, delight of my eyes, flame of my life. His frequent concerns about her health and her well-being are heartfelt. One summer when the weather, which had been scorching, turns cold, he hastens to write and order her to take out her warm garments again lest she fall ill. When he learns that on more than one occasion her mother had not provided a carriage when she came to see him, he flies into a rage against the stingy présidente who dared expose his darling wife to the dangers of crossing Paris on foot and unattended.
In his few letters to the présidente, he can be imperious and groveling at the same time, but he understands she wields the power and controls his fate, and he writes accordingly. In his letters to one of the few women he loved but never physically conquered, Marie-Dorothée de Rousset, also known as Milli, Milli Springtime, Fanny, or the Saint, there is a closeness, a bantering but respectful tone, an intimacy not found elsewhere. And when, after spending several months in Paris seconding Madame de Sade’s efforts to plead the marquis’s cause both with the présidente and the king’s ministers, Milli Springtime writes him that she is returning to Provence, he writes her a letter of disappointment and disdain that reveals the depths of his feeling for her. His letters to his attorney, business manager, and boyhood friend Gaufridy are those of irritated master to recalcitrant employee. While Sade sorely needs him, increasingly he cannot suffer him, and in his paranoia—here doubtless justified—taxes him for yielding to the hateful stratagems of la présidente and essentially accuses him of working for her. His letters to Monsieur Le Noir, the lieutenant-general of police, are generally respectful, both because in the main he had dealt fairly with the prisoner and had—unlike the Vincennes warden de Rougemont—treated him as the gentleman he was. As for the latter, both in the letters to de Rougemont and his references to the man in his letters to others, Sade’s vitriolic pen knows no bounds. As for the letters to his valet Carteron, a.k.a. La Jeunesse, a.k.a. Martin Quiros (pseudonyms the marquis made up for his favorite valet), Sade reserves a whole other tone, one of teasing and twitting, a complicity that can only come from those who have been through a lot together (which they surely had) and whose relationship, even though of master to servant, was one of friendship and intimacy. In his Carteron letters, Sade displays a rollicking sense of humor completely lacking anywhere else, with the possible exception of some of his buoyant tales and novellas, such as the delicious “Mystified Magistrate.”
Several years after Sade’s death, the need to excavate the Charenton Cemetery caused Sade’s grave to be dug up. Dr. L. J. Ramon, now fully aware of his early patient’s fame, attended the exhumation, where he asked for and received Sade’s skull. Phrenology 14 was all the rage then, and Ramon made a careful examination of the skull. According to that study, the prominent features of Sade’s character were theosophy and benevolence (top of the cranium), lack of combativeness (no exaggerated development behind the ears), no excess in physical love (no exaggerated distance between nostrils). In fact, Sade’s skull, Dr. Ramon concluded, “was in all respects similar to that of a Father of the Church.”
Later, Ramon yielded to the entreaties of a German phrenologist of some renown, Dr. Spurzheim, and
In his few letters to the présidente, he can be imperious and groveling at the same time, but he understands she wields the power and controls his fate, and he writes accordingly. In his letters to one of the few women he loved but never physically conquered, Marie-Dorothée de Rousset, also known as Milli, Milli Springtime, Fanny, or the Saint, there is a closeness, a bantering but respectful tone, an intimacy not found elsewhere. And when, after spending several months in Paris seconding Madame de Sade’s efforts to plead the marquis’s cause both with the présidente and the king’s ministers, Milli Springtime writes him that she is returning to Provence, he writes her a letter of disappointment and disdain that reveals the depths of his feeling for her. His letters to his attorney, business manager, and boyhood friend Gaufridy are those of irritated master to recalcitrant employee. While Sade sorely needs him, increasingly he cannot suffer him, and in his paranoia—here doubtless justified—taxes him for yielding to the hateful stratagems of la présidente and essentially accuses him of working for her. His letters to Monsieur Le Noir, the lieutenant-general of police, are generally respectful, both because in the main he had dealt fairly with the prisoner and had—unlike the Vincennes warden de Rougemont—treated him as the gentleman he was. As for the latter, both in the letters to de Rougemont and his references to the man in his letters to others, Sade’s vitriolic pen knows no bounds. As for the letters to his valet Carteron, a.k.a. La Jeunesse, a.k.a. Martin Quiros (pseudonyms the marquis made up for his favorite valet), Sade reserves a whole other tone, one of teasing and twitting, a complicity that can only come from those who have been through a lot together (which they surely had) and whose relationship, even though of master to servant, was one of friendship and intimacy. In his Carteron letters, Sade displays a rollicking sense of humor completely lacking anywhere else, with the possible exception of some of his buoyant tales and novellas, such as the delicious “Mystified Magistrate.”
Several years after Sade’s death, the need to excavate the Charenton Cemetery caused Sade’s grave to be dug up. Dr. L. J. Ramon, now fully aware of his early patient’s fame, attended the exhumation, where he asked for and received Sade’s skull. Phrenology 14 was all the rage then, and Ramon made a careful examination of the skull. According to that study, the prominent features of Sade’s character were theosophy and benevolence (top of the cranium), lack of combativeness (no exaggerated development behind the ears), no excess in physical love (no exaggerated distance between nostrils). In fact, Sade’s skull, Dr. Ramon concluded, “was in all respects similar to that of a Father of the Church.”
Later, Ramon yielded to the entreaties of a German phrenologist of some renown, Dr. Spurzheim, and
Similar Books
