The Deranged Mind of the Marquis de Sade

Sadism. Noun. The derivation of sexual gratification from the infliction of physical pain or humiliation on another person. But where does this word come from? Well, from a man whose lifestyle and writings puts to shame any Christian Grey, it comes from Le Marquis de Sade.

PDF of '120 Days of Sodom'

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The Marquis of Sade was born in Paris on June 2nd, 1740. At 10, he was sent to the college Louis-le-Grand, where he developed a passion for drama and flogging. At 14, he joined the army and participated in the Seven years war against Prussia. His superior described him as “deranged, but brave.”

After the war, he married the Heiress of Montreuil, with whom he would have 2 sons and a daughter.

His first scandal occurred in 1763 when he was imprisoned following denunciations of blasphemy from a prostitute. In the Ancien Régime, this was a big deal but the Marquis was a noble so he was liberated.

On the Easter weekend of 1768, he offered her work as a maid but instead, attached her to a bed and whipped her violently. He then slashed her skin to pour hot wax in the open wounds. All the while, he masturbated while threatening to kill her if she stopped screaming. When he was done, he forced her to do blasphemous acts before trapping her in her room while he visited some prostitutes. However, she escaped through a window and roused the village against him. The Marquis was only sent to prison for 6 months as his family paid off the victim.

In June 1772, he was accused of poisoning some prostitutes during an orgy he organized. The court of Provence condemned them to the death penalty, but the Marquis escaped to Italy. He was arrested in Savoy five months later but escaped again and hid in his Lacoste castle in Provence with his wife, who would now become his accomplice.

In 1774, they held captive six young children in their castle for six weeks during which Sade subjected them to numerous sexual abuses. Following that, the King ordered his arrest, but the Marquis escaped once again to Italy dressed as a priest.

When he returned to Lacoste in 1776, he hired young children which he then sexually abused. This would continue for another year until a father assaulted Sade with a gun to reclaim his daughter. This time Sade didn't have his family to help out.

His mother-in-law asked the King a Lettre de Cachet against him which imprisoned. First in Vinceness and then in the Bastille in 1784. There, he started writing down his wildest fantasies, one of which was "120 Days of Sodom”. It was written on an extremely small font on a 12-meter roll he had to hide in his cell’s wall in fear of having it confiscated.

On July 4th, Sade was dragged naked as a worm to the Charenton Asylum, near Paris. Just 10 days later, the Bastille was stormed and then destroyed, with it, so Sade believed, his manuscript for "120 Days of Sodom" which devastated him.

In 1790, the Marquis was freed from the mental asylum after the National Assembly abolished the use of lettre de cachet. His wife divorced him soon after. Following his release, he renamed himself as Louis Sade and unsuccessfully attempted to direct some of his plays before using his writing talents at the service of the revolution.

In 1791, he successfully published “Justine”, which he had written in the Bastille, and a year later, he was elected as one of the delegates of the National Convention, where he would regularly make staunch atheist speeches.

Robespierre, who fervently despised atheists, imprisoned him in 1793 and condemned him to the guillotine in 1794 but Sade was saved by the downfall of Robespierre. Terrified, he decided to leave politics.

In 1799, the third edition of Justine is published, “La Nouvelle Justine”, which comprised of 10 novels illustrated with one hundred pornographic engravings. Napoleon hated the book to the point of imprisoning Sade in 1801 because of it. Eventually, he was sent to the Charenton asylum again where, in 1810, he started an affair with a 14-years old girl until his death in 1814 at the age of 74.

After his death, his son burnt every manuscript he could find but someone had found and saved the manuscript of "120 Days of Sodom" which Iwan Boch, a German psychiatrist and published in 1904.