Letters From Prison (62 page)

2
. As Lely notes, there was “utter confusion” on the matter of titles. “In the army and in the letters of Ministers of the Crown about the Arceuil affair, Sade’s imprisonment in Savoy, and so forth, he appears as
Count,
but in his marriage contract, the arrest warrant of October 29th 1763 and the proceedings at both Arceuil and Marseilles and elsewhere he is described as
Marquis”
(Lely, p. 257).

89. To Madame de Sade

[After January 10, 1784]

I
trust, Madame, that you will have passed on to your parents the results of our most recent conversation concerning the ridiculous appointment intended for your son. Be so kind as to remit the enclosed letter to him, so that he can see for himself what my express intentions are as far as he is concerned, and I will hold you responsible for informing me if he intends to disobey them. I most urgently beg your mother to refrain from involving herself in my children’s affairs. I have no need whatsoever either of her little twists and turns, nor of the considerable influence her younger son from Normandy may have in helping place my son in military service. All I do need is my freedom. Were I to be master of my own actions today, tomorrow your son would be placed in the service for which he was destined and where ’tis appropriate he be. I had, moreover, written and told you a thousand times over that none of my children will ever leave their school or your house until I have spent a full year with them. Nothing in the entire universe will make me change that opinion. Nor shall either of my two sons join any branch of service whatsoever until they have learned how to ride properly and until I have personally chosen a servant to accompany them. Ponder well these three points, in the full knowledge that no reason whatsoever could ever make me alter my views thereon. If one acts against my express desires, as is most likely, since I am in prison and unable to prevent it from happening, mark my words that the first thing I shall do once I am free will be to force him to leave that branch of service. That I swear on my most sacred and most authentic word of honor. On that point have no doubts, Madame. Do not try to turn me against my children. Some people seem to be doing everything in their power to do so, and I dare say ’tis not very clever of them. You, the king, and the judiciary, the entire legal code of the kingdom, no matter what precautions one may take under previous or current laws, will not prevent me from reducing the four estates I own in Provence to a
hundred pistoles of income,
and that without selling off so much as a single inch of land. That is the secret that you never fathomed, and never will, and that I most assuredly will put into effect if you permit my son to disobey me. What is more, Madame, I shall do my best to inspire in him the same kind of feelings for you that you are trying to instill in him about me.

Since madame your mother’s head is inclined to plan well ahead, when she dreamed up this fine position for your son she doubtless also had in mind some plan or other for an equally excellent marriage a few years down the road. In order to avoid having to bring up these same subjects over and over again, I have the honor of hereby declaring to you, and attesting thereto by this same letter, Madame, and under the same seal as my word of honor, that I most assuredly will not give my approval to any such marriage before he is twenty-five years of age, and not a day sooner. It is my express desire that he be married nowhere but in
Lyons
or
Avignon,
and under no circumstances would I allow either he or you, or therefore myself, to take up residence in Paris. I have told you time and time again, Madame, that once all this is over my intention is to repair to and live in my own province. I have no doubt that my children will follow me there, and just as certainly ’tis there they shall marry and take up residence.

’Tis in vain that you make Baron de Breteuil your spokesmen in all such matters. My present situation, and the extremely high regard in which I hold this minister, a man full worthy of respect for a thousand different reasons,
¹
oblige me to agree to whatever he requests; but once I am free, I shall take the liberty of reminding him that a
pater familias
is the master of his children, and that ’tis quite impossible for anyone to deprive him of those rights. You must see by the style of this letter that ’tis written with all the self-control at my command. It contains the same things I have been repeating to you for seven years now, and you may be quite sure that I shall never change my opinion. I finish by giving you, and signing, my most genuine and sacred word of honor.

DE SADE

Moreover, Madame, now that your elder son has become a man in his own right in the world, I must warn you that I intend to follow the well-established family custom, wherein the head of the family assumes the title of count and names his eldest son the marquis. As for myself, I shall doubtless do the king’s bidding, whatever that may be, since I do not have a single letter patent that stipulates either my responsibility nor my duties, not a single letter, from either the princes or the ministers, that addresses me by this title. I tell you this so that you may familiarize the public which, having become accustomed to a different title, will subsequently have trouble changing its ideas. As for my own ideas, you may rest assured that they will never change.

1
. Baron de Breteuil, the newly named minister of the royal household for Paris, was much more humane than his predecessor and took steps to improve conditions in the prison system. As a result, Sade was allowed to receive more frequent visits from his wife.

90. To Madame de Sade

[End of January, 1784]

G
iven the impossibility of having the frank and open exchange we could have if you were here on one of your visits, and lest you mistake the tone I am obliged to use in my letters as a lack of spine on my part, or even acquiescence, when it comes to the subject of my son, I say once again and do solemnly swear that on the matter in question my feelings will never change; that I am absolutely against his joining the regiment in which you wish to place him against my wishes; and that in the event you persist and place him there despite what I say to you, then the first thing I shall do once I am free is to oblige him to leave that regiment immediately, and in order to convince you that ’tis not for the base reason that you dared ascribe to me yesterday for so doing, a reason that you should blush even to dare let enter your mind, in order to convince you, I say, that far from standing in the way of his advancement as your unworthy parents dared prompt you to tell me, I am fully prepared if ’tis what it takes, to sacrifice half of my fortune, nay, two-thirds if necessary, to make sure he obtains even the lowliest post in the carabiniers. To that end, I am ready and willing to sign whatever paper, make whatever pledge, might be required. All you need do is bring along a notary and I shall sign whatever you like. But as for serving in Soubise’s infantry regiment, that he will not do under any circumstances, and on that I swear to you on everything I hold most sacred in the world. There is nothing more ridiculous than hearing you say what you did yesterday on that score:
The king,
you said, wants him to
join the infantry!
Verily, you do me the honor, you and those around you, of believing that because I am confined to a single room I have therefore become an imbecile. Do you for a moment believe that I do not know the constitution as well as you? Are we in Turkey, or have we been born serfs under the authority of some despot who holds the power of life and death over his slaves? No, no, Madame, the king’s authority does not go so far as to remove a son from his father’s control; the authority of paternal rights takes precedence over that of a monarch, of that you may be quite sure.

Leave it to your mother, all puffed up with pride as she is from having succeeded in paying off three or four police puppets, to hold to the little bourgeois notion that the king can do no wrong, just because the police informers, her faithful disciples, tell her that ’tis a sin to question the king’s word. —Yes, leave her that fathead Marais; she is made for him, but not you, and mark you well that in spite of all that odious woman’s servile stupidities, the only two people who have the final say about your children are you and me, that I do not want your son to serve under Soubise, and that your friendship for me and duty to me oblige you to yield to my desires, especially when they are founded on such firm reasons as those I shall cite at the appropriate time.

Meanwhile, keep in mind the genuine oath that I have sworn to you, namely that nothing on the face of the earth will persuade me to leave him where you seem bound to place him, and that no later than six weeks following my release I shall at long last seek proper redress under the law to undo all the infamies that your odious parents have inflicted on me day in and day out.

DE SADE

91. To Gaufridy

[February 3, 1784]

I
have just learned from Madame de Sade, Monsieur, that I have had the misfortune to lose one of my aunts.
¹

My intention is that the annuity that aunt received be shared between my two surviving aunts (I refer to the two nuns). Please be so kind as to inform them of this, Monsieur, and the new situation should take effect from the day of my aunt’s death, in such wise that there be no hiatus in this modest income, not even a single moment, and that from the time it ceased to be given over into the hands of Madame La Coste
²
it pass in equal shares to these two ladies of Saint-Benoit and Saint-Bernard. I would also be grateful if you would, in carrying out my orders most promptly on this matter, at the same time also inform them, while offering them a thousand pardons on my behalf, that because of my many hardships and the mediocrity of my fortune, I am not in a position to offer a more concrete proof of my affection and respect, and one more commensurate with the dictates of my heart.

In the event I were to suffer a second loss such as this, I commend you to act in the same manner as you have here with regard to my remaining aunt, so that the final surviving aunt will be the recipient of her sisters’ annuities. As soon as this has been done, please be good enough to inform Madame de Sade of it, so that she may then pass the information on to me. At the same time, please tell my aunts that I would have taken care of this matter much sooner if only I had been informed of it sooner.

I have the honor of being, Monsieur, your most humble and obedient servant.

COUNT DE SADE

1
. Sade’s paternal grandfather, Gaspard François de Sade, had five daughters, only one of whom married. The other four all became nuns, two at the convent of Saint-Laurent in Avignon, two at different convents in Avignon. The cloistered sisters saw little of their errant nephew, but rumors of his deeds and misdeeds reached them nonetheless, doubtless from their brother the Abbé de Sade. Despite the disturbing echoes, all four seemed never to give up on the marquis. Hence his gratitude, which one has to believe was sincere.

2
. Marguerite-Félicité de Sade, also known as Madame La Coste, was an ordinary nun in the convent of Saint-Bernard in Cavaillon. Since it was she who died, Sade is confused when he asks that her share be divided between the two surviving sisters at Saint-Bernard and Saint-Benoit. His other surviving aunt, Anne-Marie Lucrèce, was in Avignon.

92. To Madame de Sade

[End of February, 1784]

H
owever great my desire to see you, my dear friend, I ask you most sincerely and most urgently not to run the risk of coming to visit me in such frightful weather. There are a thousand dangers you risk if you do try to come, all of which worry me to death when I think of you thus exposed. This weather cannot long endure. Thus the few days I shall be kept waiting will cause me less suffering than the mortal anguish wherewith I shall be overcome the minute you leave me in such weather as this; because, after you leave, I shall have no way of knowing what has become of you, and that drives me to distraction. Your mother must be either dead drunk or completely mad in thus risking her daughter’s life, in order to form a 19 and a 4, or a 16 and 9, and not be weary of this little numbers game she has been playing for twelve years now. Oh! what an indigestion that horrible woman had suffered from all the numbers she has ingested! I am convinced that if she had died before the eruption, and if they opened her up, a million numbers would have come tumbling from her entrails. You have no idea how much I loathe all these numbers and convoluted intricacies. I am told that using numbers is the language of negotiators. Well, then! I shall never negotiate for the rest of my life, for considering all the insuperable horror you have given me over all that gibberish, I believe that if the king were to give me the top-ranking ambassadorship in his kingdom, I would refuse it.
¹

But I am wrong in saying
I believe.
Nothing is more certain. Believe me, do not head off in the wrong direction. I can see what’s going through your mind, but I declare and solemnly swear to you on all that I hold most sacred in the world, that were the king to offer me [the ambassadorship] to a monarchy, I would not take it. You have instilled in me too great a loathing for chains: I would turn my back on them even were they covered with flowers.