Marquis de Sade
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| “ | No desire can be termed outlandish, my dear; all desires can be found in nature. When nature created human beings, it delighted in differentiating their sexual leanings as much as their faces; and we should no more be astonished by the diversity of our features than by the diversity that nature has placed in our affections. | „ |
| ~ Marquis de Sade |
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (2 June 1740 - 2 December 1814) was a French nobleman, politician and author most famous for his quasi-erotic novels Justine and The 120 Days of Sodom. Although he surprisingly has a number of admirers today, de Sade was an extreme sexual deviant whose name was given to the phrases sadism, sadist and, together with Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, sadomasochism.
Biography edit
Related to the royal house of Condé, the de Sade family numbered among its ancestors Laure de Noves, whom the 14th-century Italian poet Petrarch immortalized in verse. When the marquis was born at the Condé mansion, his father was away from home on a diplomatic mission. De Sade’s mother, Marie Elénore Maillé de Carman, was a lady-in-waiting to the princesse de Condé.
After early schooling with his uncle, Abbé de Sade of Ebreuil, the marquis continued his studies at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. His aristocratic background entitled him to various ranks in the king’s regiments, and in 1754 he began a military career, which he abandoned in 1763 at the end of the Seven Years’ War. In that year he married the daughter of a high-ranking bourgeois family de robe (“of the magistracy”), the Montreuils. By her he had two sons, Louis-Marie and Donatien-Claude-Armand, and one daughter, Madeleine-Laure.
Aside from his obscene writings, de Sade was imprisoned several times for his various perverted deeds, which included raping his servants and sodomizing tramps he had brought in off the street. He advocated the abolition of all laws and moral tethers in order to allow absolute freedom, and was a proponent of free brothels provided by the state. He also kidnapped, raped and tortured a couple of girls for several days in a case which inspired him to write The 120 Days of Sodom. De Sade was charged with sodomy multiple times but generally fled to Italy before he could be arrested. He was eventually captured in 1778 and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted but he remained imprisoned under the order of the king of France.
While imprisoned in the Bastille, de Sade wrote 120 Days of Sodom. He later shouted to crowds gathered outside that "They are killing the prisoners!", causing a riot and ultimately leading to the Storming of the Bastille (although de Sade had been sent to another prison by this point). He was eventually released in 1790 after the French Revolution eliminated the monarchy.
Despite his aristocratic background, de Sade was initially successful during the revolutionary government. However, he later became more critical of Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety and was imprisoned until the revolutionary government was overthrown. He was later imprisoned for the final time in 1801 for blasphemy and publishing obscene literature at the direct order of Napoleon Bonaparte. While imprisoned he was declared insane and sent to Charenton asylum. After it was revealed that he was continuing an affair with a 14-year-old girl, he was placed in solitary confinement until his death in 1814.