The Madman of Lacoste

Who was Marquis de Sade? -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter

Marquis de Sade. The very mention of his name elicits laughter from some, and shocked disapproval from others. Sadism is a love that dare not speak its name, except maybe in the “alternatives” section of a singles web site. Marquis de Sade was in fact a French nobleman who lived from 1740 to 1814 – an aristocrat and also a prolific writer. His young life was unremarkable in some ways, promising in others. He went to Jesuit school as a young man and then served successfully as a Colonel in the Seven Years’ War. If only he had gone into the quiet retirement of a well-heeled Frenchman at this point, but he did not. He entered into writing and entertaining other libertine people instead.

De Sade’s first brush with the law was when he kidnapped an English prostitute, Rose Keller, and imprisoned her in the dungeon room of his castle at Lacoste (now owned by fashion designer Pierre Cardin). She escaped and reported him to police – they immediately placed him under surveillance but didn’t arrest him. De Sade was treated with kid gloves in many of his legal scrapes; it’s either a testament to his gentry status or his commanding people skills. De Sade (apparently bisexual) next took up with a manservant, Latour, with whom he had an affair. They were arrested for sodomy but successfully escaped to Italy. De Sade continued to rack up enough “debaucheries” that he was already a legend in his time.

De Sade was frequently incarcerated – in fact he spent 32 of his 74 years either in prisons like Bastille or the Charenton Insane Asylum. During his prison stays he wrote copious novels, novellas and plays. Many of these were destroyed by his own family hoping to avoid a black mark on the family name. His surviving S&M-themed masterworks are:

Justine
Juliette
120 Days of Sodom

His grandest work, The Days of Florbelle, was destroyed by his son upon de Sade’s passing. Justine and Juliette are more in the style of Voltaire’s Candide where they tell of young women’s travails and embarrassments (much of it sexual) in life. 120 Days of Sodom is truly gruesome – it crosses over “the line” (we all know it when we see it). It entails torture, murder and coprophagy among other disgusting things.

De Sade lived through the French Revolution period. He was a savvy man, and knew that his life was at risk as an aristocrat in such times. He renounced his wealthy status and changed his title to “Citizen Sade”. His good humor combined with his culturally rebellious nature endeared him to the Revolutionaries and they even put him in the National Convention, representing the far left. De Sade was appalled by the guillotine however and voiced his concern. He was then placed on death row for his “moderatism”. The Revolution wound down before he could be beheaded, and then he was eventually released.

Napoleon was shocked and outraged after reading Justine and ordered de Sade to be imprisoned again. His family was able to have him declared mentally unfit and moved to a mental hospital. This was where de Sade finished out his life. Even here, he wrote many plays that were performed by fellow patients and he carried on an affair with a 13 year old girl.

Some 250 years later, there is a mixed reaction to Marquis de Sade. His own family tried to suppress his works, and none would use “Marquis” as a title after he left his mark. Some (non-family) have hailed de Sade as a pioneer for personal freedom, existentialism and even Freudian analysis. Feminists have seen him as a dark force who tried to make acceptable the idea of possessing and abusing a woman.

Whatever one might think, he certainly lived an interesting life. Upon scanning passages from 120 Days, I can only say that this was a disturbed man whose dark visions made the world a far different place. In some ways he was a man way ahead of his time – whether that’s a good or a bad thing is left for the reader to determine.

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