Who was the wife of the Marquis de Sade. Marquis de Sade short biography

Sade Donatien Alphonse François de (1740–1814), French marquis, writer; eponym of sadism.

Born June 2, 1740 at the Chateau de Condé in Paris. Sade's lineage goes back to the semi-legendary Laura de Noves (c. 1308–1348), beloved of the Italian poet Petrarch, who around 1325 married Count Hugo de Sade. According to early historical chronicles, all male ancestors of Sade bore the title of count. However, his grandfather Gaspard Francois de Sade began to call himself a marquis. Father - Jean Baptiste Francois Joseph de Sade (? - 1767), officer and diplomat; at one time he was the French envoy to Russia. From the surviving police reports, it follows that Sade's father was detained in the Tuileries Garden for "immodest molestation of young people." Mother - Maria Eleanor de Meil ​​de Karman, a distant relative and maid of honor of the Princess of Condé.

As a child, Sade suffered from a lack of parental attention. Studied at the Jesuit College of Louis the Great. May 24, 1754 entered the royal guard. During the Seven Years' War, he rose to the rank of cavalry captain (captain). By all accounts, he had the ability to achieve his goals at any cost. Already in his youth, he enjoyed a bad reputation as a person who did not recognize the norms of generally accepted morality. By his own admission: "... it seemed to me that everyone should yield to me, that the whole world is obliged to fulfill my whims, that this world belongs only to me alone."

In 1763 Sad retired. At the urging of his parents, he married Renée Pélagie de Montreuil, daughter of the president of the Supreme Tax Court. The wedding took place on May 17, 1763 in the Church of Saint Roche in Paris. Three children were born in the family: Louis Marie (b.1767), Donatien Claude Armand (b.1769) and Madeleine Laura (1771). In all likelihood, Rene Pelagie was well aware of her husband's vicious inclinations, but could not or did not want to prevent them.

Marital ties by no means limited Sade's freedom of action. It is known about his connections with the best friend of his wife Colette, the actress La Beauvoisin, and others. In his country house, Sade arranged group orgies with prostitutes and commoners, whom he picked up on the streets of Paris.

Repeatedly accused of abusing his casual partners. October 29, 1763 Louis XV ordered to investigate the accumulated complaints. The half-month imprisonment in the royal prison of Vincennes did not bring Sade to his senses. In the future, he continued to engage in his sexual experiments and spent a total of about thirty years behind bars.

On April 3, 1768, the widow Rose Keller turned to the gendarmerie, asking for alms on the occasion of Easter in Victoria Square. She stated that Sade subjected her to flogging and sexual abuse for several days. A loud scandal broke out, which excited the whole society. Wanting to avoid further publicity, the gendarmerie inspector sent Sade to the family castle of La Coste (La Coste) in the south of France in Provence.

In the summer of 1772 in Marseilles, four girls of easy virtue, aged 18 to 23, became de Sade's victims. Together with his servant Armand Latour, Sade flogged the girls with a whip, and then forced them to have anal sex. After several hours of continuous torture, the prostitutes became ill: they began to have convulsions and uncontrollable vomiting. Sad hastily fled to Italy, fearing severe punishment: in France, Sodomy sin was punishable by burning at the stake. French justice had to be content with the fact that on September 12, 1772, the executioner burned the effigies of the Garden and his lackey in one of the central squares of Aix.

In the winter of 1777, the police tracked down and arrested Sade in Paris, where he came to say goodbye to his terminally ill mother. The garden was kept in the prison of Vincennes.

Sitting behind bars, Sade was actively engaged in literary work. He created a number of works in a variety of genres: the play "Dialogue between a priest and a dying man" ("Dialogue entre un pretre et un moribond", 1782); Philosophy in the Boudoir (La Philosophie dans le boudoir, published 1795); "One Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom" ("Les 120 Journees de Sodome, ou l'Ecole de libertinage", 1784); the novels Aline and Valcour (Aline et Valcour; ou, Le Roman philosophique, 1785–88, published 1795); "Crimes of love" ("Les Crimes de l'Amour", published 1800); " Short stories, short stories and fablios" ("Historiettes, contes et fabliaux", published 1927); “Justine or the Misfortunes of Virtue” (“Justine ou les malheurs de la vertu”, 1787); "Juliette" ("Juliette", 1798), etc. In addition, Sade wrote several dozen philosophical essays, political pamphlets, etc.

A long stay in custody was reflected in the health and character of the Sade. According to eyewitnesses, he became very stout, became irritable and intolerant of other people's opinions. February 29, 1784 S. was transferred to the Bastille, where he was kept until the French Revolution. On July 2, 1789, from the window of his cell, he loudly called out for help: “Prisoners are being killed here!” For a daring trick, Sade was sent to the Charenton psychiatric hospital near Paris.

The garden was freed on March 29, 1790. He furiously attacked the representatives of the monarchical nobility, wrote several pamphlets against Marie Antoinette, Princess T. Lambal, the Duchess de Polignac, and others. July 9, 1790 divorced his wife; then came forward with the accusation of her parents of aristocrats in the tribunal. Garden's new girlfriend was Marie Constance Quesnet, a former actress and single mother of a six-year-old son.

For more than three years, Sade successfully portrayed the victim of the political regime. He achieved the staging of his plays on the Parisian stage. The pinnacle of Sade's revolutionary career was his election to the National Convention. However, vigilant deputies suspected him of having links with emigration. Unsuccessfully tried to regain confidence by praising the merits of J. P. Marat. On December 8, 1793, Garden ended up in Madlonette prison, where he spent about ten months. During the period of the Jacobin terror, Sade escaped the guillotine only because of bureaucratic delay. He was released in the summer of 1794, after the execution of M. Robespierre.

In 1796, the garden was forced to sell the castle of La Coste, plundered during the revolution. The first consul of the French Republic, Napoleon Bonaparte, did not like Sade. Perhaps he suspected him of authoring an anonymous novel about the adventures of his first wife, Josephine. Sade's works were confiscated, the finances were completely upset, and his health was severely undermined. Having no other shelter, on March 5, 1801, the Garden entered the orphanage of Sant Pelagi. Constantly violated the regime, showed obsessive sexual activity. The Commission of Physicians of Bicêtre Hospital recognized him. insane.

April 27, 1803 S. was transferred to the Charenton hospital. For about six years he enjoyed the patronage of the hospital confessor Abbé de Culmier. He organized something like a hospital theater, the performances of which were attended by the free public. According to the memoirs, Sad played the role of villains remarkably. He freely walked around the territory, communicated with visitors and even received M.K. Kyusne in his cell.

In 1809, for unknown reasons, the Garden was transferred to a closed solitary ward. According to rumors, in 1813 the seventy-three-year-old Garden managed to seduce Madeleine Leclerc, the thirteen-year-old daughter of one of the overseers.

De Sade died of an asthma attack on December 2, 1814. He bequeathed to bury himself in the forest, and cover the road to the grave with acorns. However, his body was buried in common grounds in the Saint Maurice cemetery in Charenton.

The life and work of the Garden gave rise to a whole scientific and cultural direction. R. Krafft Ebing in the book "Sexual Psychopathy" (1876) was the first to introduce the term sadism to refer to the pleasure derived from inflicting physical pain and moral suffering on a sexual partner.

Biography of de Sade is a real chronicle of punishments and imperious arbitrariness of the 18th-19th centuries. The first scandal involving the Marquis was the rape of the commoner Rosa Keller. According to the case file, de Sade threatened to kill her and bury her if she did not agree to have sex with him. The girl miraculously managed to escape through the window, twisting a rope out of the sheets. For such misdeeds, de Sade was briefly held in prison and awarded a hefty fine. The nobles got away with a lot in those days.

The second episode is the so-called "Marseille Affair". Four girls and the footman of the Marquis were involved at once. The program includes group anal sex, flagellation and the use of aphrodisiacs, which spoiled a pleasant evening: one of the orgy participants was poisoned by them, which became the reason for a complaint to the police.

The nobles got away with a lot, but not anal sex (especially with a footman) and poisoning. The court ruled that de Sade should repent and then go to the square, where he would be beheaded.

The headless body of a lover of spicy practices was ordered to be burned, and the ashes scattered in the wind. The Marquis did not wait for the execution and escaped from custody.

The third incident is an excellent illustration of the picture of the manners of that time. After the French Revolution, the nobles were stripped of all the bonuses that were due to them by birthright. Our hero deftly adapted to the new order and turned from the "Marquis de Sade" into a "citizen of the Sade" - a prominent commissar of the revolution.

People then stood in queues not only for food, but also for the guillotine. The ex-nobleman struggled to reduce the number of those sentenced, for which he paid the price.

The revolutionary tribunal sentenced Citizen Sade to guillotining for "excessive moderation." But he managed to avoid execution due to bureaucratic delays.

Finally, the fourth scandal occurred already under Napoleon. The marquis considered it a good idea to write a satirical pamphlet about the newly-made emperor and his mistress. The power of wit did not appreciate and took the already elderly de Sade to the Charenton psychiatric hospital, where the Marquis eventually died.

More than a century and a half later, the philosopher Michel Foucault will write the work “Supervise and Punish”, where, without mentioning de Sade, he will tell how executions have evolved. At first, there were executions on a grand scale - public repentance with public mortification. The authorities turned the destruction of criminals into a show with bonfires and screams. Then the whole movement was reduced to a simple and economical murder: once - and there is no person. The executioner, who could dissect the victim for hours, was replaced by the guillotine - now it was just necessary to move the lever so that the blade would cut off the head with a whistle. Finally the time has come. The criminals from the legion of ungodly evil have moved into the category of sick deviants who just need to be properly treated.

De Sade went through all the stages of this thorny path.

Just think about it: Dostoevsky survived only one execution (both sham and by firing squad) and one imprisonment (in prison), but his impressions were enough for The Idiot and The Possessed. What can we say about a man who served a total of about thirty years and was sentenced to be burned and decapitated (twice).

Throughout his life, de Sade was in constant contact with the punitive institutions of the state and in fact never belonged to himself: he was either sent to the scaffold, then put behind bars, then locked in a ward. This is the key to understanding the work of the Marquis.

Sadism does not come from perverts and psychopaths, but from power as such: the one who is at the helm can at any moment afford to behead and burn anyone objectionable.

Sadism breeds power.

De Sade vs. Jesus Christ

The best review of the works of the Marquis was written not by a literary critic, but by the prefect of police. It is quite concise, and you simply cannot say more precisely:

“It is impossible to read all these ten volumes in a row, filled with cruelty, blasphemy and impious speeches. Obscenity and the most refined debauchery reign in them, any trick of the characters finds a justification for itself, but, fortunately, few people are capable of such acts.

The structure of virtually every book by de Sade, from Justine and Juliette to 120 Days of Sodom and Philosophy in the Boudoir, is simple. The most brutal gang-bang with faces of both sexes in the most incredible configurations, a collective orgasm, and then a long philosophical debate among the survivors.

Whatever topic the libertines touch, the main thesis is unchanged: religion, politics, charity and other achievements of civilization are only a screen for the enslavement of one individual by another.

Everything is based on the power of the strong over the weak, but the roles are constantly changing - yesterday you are a powerful monarch, and tomorrow your head is already on the block, because some kind of national avenger blazed with righteous anger and took over you.

The reader, at least a little versed in philosophy, will notice that the Marquis did not write mediocre porn, but a multi-page exposure of the Enlightenment and the ideas of its main thinkers. In many ways, sadism became the answer to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who seriously believed that a person is naturally beautiful, and spoils his exceptionally bad upbringing. They say that we are born with a full package of virtues, but once in society, we rapidly begin to lose them and become hostages of a system where inequality, poverty and oppression flourish.

De Sade objects: initially, people are just unequal and therefore cruel by nature. Moreover, to learn morality from nature, where the strong devour the weak, and the most resourceful survives, that is still stupidity.

And in general, morality was invented by a person, it is relative and varies depending on the country, weather conditions and the amount of alcohol consumed. This also applies to faith, politics and other "achievements of civilization."

Most of all, the marquis is drawn to religion, and specifically to the "golden rule of morality" (treat others as you want to be treated) in his Christian version (love your neighbor as yourself). Sadists break this postulate from the inside: they torture their "neighbors" by the right of the strong, but also recognize that exactly the same thing can happen to them in the future.

Sadism was born of nature. And you can't run away from nature.

When there is no strength to read it, but there is strength to watch

If we offered you to read at least one book by de Sade, it would be like a crime against humanity.

Someone will say that they are poorly written (and they will be right), but the problem is different: the Marquis is trying with all his might and means of the French language to arouse the maximum disgust in the reader.

Streams of feces, blood and semen, a kaleidoscope of rapes and dismemberments (sometimes in reverse order) and an almost complete list of sexual deviations, where sadomasochism is far from the first place.

Therefore, from the entire extensive list of film adaptations, the main part of which is pure pornography, we recommend exactly one - the film "Feathers" (aka "The Feather of the Marquis de Sade"): an old nobleman (Geoffrey Rush) lives his last days in a psychiatric hospital and raises a rebellion against the directorate represented by a priest (Joaquin Phoenix) and a doctor (Michael Caine).

If you want to understand what de Sade wrote about in just two hours, look at Feathers, you won’t find anything better.

Freedom, equality, brotherhood, blood, death, graveyard

But let's get back to de Sade's real biography - it is in it that you can find the answer to all the questions he asked in books.

An aristocrat by birth, Donasien was brought up at court. Comte de Charolais, who found himself there (who, however, is prudently not written about in history books) was an outstanding personality. There were many interesting tales about him. According to rumors, it cost him nothing to shoot a roofer repairing tiles in broad daylight - to practice accuracy.

And it was also said that when Charolais' mistress brought him a newborn son, he took and gave him vodka to drink, after which the child died. “Not mine, then,” summed up the count.

When the authorities tried to wrap Charolais for his outrages, he immediately ran to the king for forgiveness. The monarch demonstrated his generosity, but with a caveat: if anyone decides to inflict lynching on the count, this person will also be pardoned. Donatien was then eight years old.

Then de Sade was waiting for the Seven Years' War (hundreds of thousands of victims) and the Great French Revolution (hundreds of thousands of victims). Napoleonic campaigns (hundreds of thousands of victims), the marquis did not find in full - by that time he was already in a psychiatric hospital.

Each time, a certain ruler doomed a huge number of people to death, guided by political, geopolitical, personal - and whatever motives. Only one thing is important: he had a right to this, which, even after the overthrow of the monarchy, did not disappear.

Louis XVI, Robespierre, Napoleon - de Sade saw each of them, but much more often - corpses: torn to shreds, decapitated, impaled on stakes and simply scattered along the Parisian streets. And behind every murder was a ruler whose portrait can be found in a history book. Whose name flaunts on dozens of streets and whose body rests, if not in the Parisian Pantheon, then at least in an elite cemetery. As for their victims, they were less fortunate: no plaques and a place in a mass grave.

Where Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade is buried, no one knows for sure.

From a legal point of view, after the death of his father, he was a count, but until the end of his life, out of habit, he was called a marquis, and under this title he went down in history. The term "sadism" was formed from his surname, although he himself was not a sadist either in a psychiatric or in an everyday sense. We present to your attention a detailed biography of the Marquis de Sade.

In his books, he mocked kindness and compassion, but in fact he defended even those who harmed him. During his lifetime, he spent 27 years in prison without trial at the arbitrariness of first the king, then the emperor, and after his death he was subjected to a thorough trial: the question was considered whether de Sade's texts were an insult to public morality, and condemned: four of his novels were on the list of banned in France books. He dreamed that his name will be erased from the memory of people, with the exception, however, of a small number of those who loved me to the last minute and of whom I take the most tender memories to the grave”, but he has been remembered for the third century now. Some consider him a monster, others - a preacher of evil, others - also a preacher, but already an unprecedented freedom of the individual, while he was not anyone from this list.

“My way of thinking has brought me no misfortune. They were caused by the thoughts of others."

It's even surprising... The first part of Donatien de Sade's life passed in those days when France was ruled by Louis XV, who received the affectionate nickname "Beloved" among the people - the ruler, to whom his constant favorites were supplied in huge quantities for sexual pleasures (including extremely cruel) innocent girls and even little girls. The aristocracy and nobles by no means lagged behind the king both in debauchery and in cruelty. So, the king's brother was in an incestuous relationship with his daughter and, for convenience, poisoned her husband. And the king's cousin amused himself by firing a gun at the roofers who were repairing the roofs. The French Revolution showed that there is practically no measure of human cruelty. Some of her victims had the opportunity to face the death penalty for a minor offense with dignity. For example, the poet and journalist Andre Chenier had the brave imprudence to write a series of articles in which he convincingly argued that the status of the Convention and the Constitution did not allow the king to be judged, one could only remove him from power.

When André Chenier and his friend were taken to be guillotined, instead of praying, they recited Phaedra's monologues. But not everyone could count on being simply dragged to the guillotine. Princess Marie-Therese-Louise of Savoy de Lambal, whose only fault was that she was a friend of Queen Marie Antoinette, was tormented by the crowd for four hours, pulling out her teeth and literally tearing off parts of her body. The unfortunate woman was brought to her senses so that she could “feel death better”, and they continued to mock her. Then her stomach was cut open, and her head cut off after death was put on a pike and carried around the city. All this was done by ordinary inhabitants, the citizens of Paris. After a short and cruel reign of the Directory, Napoleon Bonaparte came to power, who, in addition to his own country, drowned Europe in blood.

With all this, for some reason, a person entered history as a symbol of evil, who, by agreement, was engaged in non-standard types sex with adult female prostitutes, whom he paid generously for this by agreement.

"The heartlessness of the rich legitimizes the misbehavior of the poor"

Donatien de Sade can hardly be called a pleasant person. He was an extreme egoist, a whiner, took everything good that was done for him for granted, and got angry when he did not get what he wanted. Until the end of his days, he remained capricious, scandalous, loved to shock people and did not want to be responsible for his behavior. He was sharp, poisonous, willingly offended and did not understand why they were offended at him. But all these nasty qualities do not make him the monster he is often portrayed as.

In 1740, the son of Donatien Alphonse Francois was born to the rich and noble couple de Sade.

The times of the Middle Ages, when Christianity had not yet had time to completely push back the infanticide approved in Antiquity, have already passed in Europe. There came a period when children were disposed of in a more humane way: from the first days of life, everyone who allowed income sent their children to nurses for several years, and then into service, to monasteries or simply to be raised by relatives or other families. Most adapted, or at least did not realize the fear and longing for abandonment that people of this era had. Perhaps that is why the philosophy of that time is imbued with the idea of ​​God-forsakenness, the absence of God - it is easier to perceive for people forgotten by their parents.

Donatien de Sade was no exception to the rule: his parents did not like him. They didn't like each other either. Jean-Baptiste de Sade married Marie-Eleanor in order to be able to freely visit his mistress Caroline-Charlotte de Conde, in whose house his wife lived.

Although de Sade did not grow up in his parents' house, he sufficiently implemented the family scenario: his father married his mother for convenience (albeit not for money), cheated on his wife all his life with constant and occasional lovers and mistresses, and even was detained by the police for obscene behavior — trying to buy a comfort boy. After years The patience of his wife ended in divorce. Almost all of this happened to the one whom we today call the Marquis de Sade.

But de Sade Sr., unlike his son, got away with it: no one considered his behavior to be somehow very vicious or even out of the ordinary, because most aristocrats lived like that. The little boy Donasien was not noticed by his parents and was frantically spoiled by his grandmother, in whose house he moved, and his paternal aunts (he had five of them) - a way of education that has not yet made anyone better. Unfortunately, connivance does not satisfy the need for love, intellectually and emotionally little Donasien was alone. Unconsciously, he obviously really needed contact with his parents. This is probably why he kept the manuscripts, letters and diary notes of his father all his life and often re-read them. As a child, he was deprived of even such contact with his father, and his mother did not take part in his son so much that later he had good filial feelings for aunts and former mistress father, who treated him much more maternally than his parent.

After some time, the comte de Sade ordered that Donatien be given to be raised by his brother, the abbe Paul Aldons de Sade. He was a highly intelligent man who loved his nephew. He instilled in the boy an interest in literature, history, geography, theology and philosophy, gave him an excellent education, but ... " Although he is a priest, there are always a couple of whores living with him. Does its castle look like a seraglio? No, it resembles a much more wonderful establishment: a brothel", - Donasien's monastery will recommend uncle. The atmosphere of the house, where the uncle met with numerous mistresses, no one in our time would consider suitable for a child. It can be assumed that at this time Donatien de Sade decided that religion and morality are one big pretense, this is exactly what adults taught him by their example.

“Someday, when the study of anatomy advances, it will be possible to connect human behavior and his addictions”

Five years later, the ten-year-old Marquis de Sade, by order of his father, will go to Paris, where he will enter the College of Louis the Great, known for many bright graduates, from Cyrano de Bergerac to Diderot and Voltaire. The training was interesting and prestigious. During his studies, he was seriously imbued with the theater: he liked to write plays, stage them and play on stage. In addition, he liked the theatricality embodied in life, which played a significant role in his fate...

It was at the college that de Sade became acquainted with the process that later became an important part of his sexuality - flogging at that time was an obligatory part of education. People subjected to regular flogging in young age, often experience, in addition to physical and mental suffering, sexual arousal, and sometimes sexual relaxation. Gradually, vivid sensations are fixed, becoming a habit, and become a necessary component of pleasure. Regular flogging, which Donatien de Sade was subjected to from 10 to 14 years old, significantly influenced the formation of his intimate life: later, during sexual intercourse, he often wanted to be flogged and whipped himself. In addition, he liked having witnesses present. It is quite obvious that this was reenacting the situation of public punishment in front of other students, which the boys were used to in college. Things were going badly for the Comte de Sade (he squandered a considerable family fortune), so after college he sent his son not to the academy or university, but to the army. The Seven Years' War, in which the Marquis de Sade took part, showed that the sixteen-year-old Donatien was a brave officer. True, the death and suffering of people did not give the young man any pleasure. In battles, he was a daredevil, and when he saw the atrocities in the conquered cities, he felt disgust and literally fell ill. In peacetime, he started a lot of novels, was known as a ladies' man and a rake. Courage for a military career is not enough, you need the ability to discipline, and with this, the careless and hating responsibility Donasien had huge problems. The army appreciated his bravery, but there were so many problems with him that when he was demobilized after the war, no one stopped him. Now the Marquis de Sade could count on a small income from the governorship in several provinces, which he received under his father's patronage. At the same time, Jean-Baptiste decided to marry his son to a rich girl and energetically began to search for a suitable candidate.

Yes, and there was no special way out: the Marquis de Sade did not know how and did not want to diligently make a career, in his warehouse he was clearly a free artist. And there was no one to help him move up the social ladder: things were not going well with his father, his mother had not cared for him for a long time, he, who had been brought up alone since childhood, did not learn how to make close friends. So the marriage was a tribute not only to complaisance, but also to real necessity.

The de Montreuil family was of lower birth, but immeasurably richer than the de Sades. The prosperous Monsieur de Montreuil served as President of the Tax Chamber, but the real head of the family was his domineering wife, Madeleine.

Twenty-three-year-old Donatien de Sade married their eldest daughter, twenty-two-year-old Rene-Pelagie, tall, dark-haired and pretty. She read a lot, was distinguished by great modesty and did not know how to value herself at all. Rene-Pelagi sincerely and recklessly fell in love with her fiancé, and this was her misfortune. Donatien, on the other hand, suffered another misfortune: he fell in love with the younger sister of his bride, Ann Proser. She was a flirtatious and very energetic sixteen-year-old lady who reciprocated Donatien de Sade. However, the Montreuils resolutely opposed when the Marquis hinted that he would like to connect his life with their youngest daughter instead of Rene-Pelagey, who was originally intended for him. Why? Who knows. Maybe they thought that the eldest should be married off first, maybe they thought such a “replacement” shortly before the wedding was scandalous.

Crime and Punishment

Before talking about the crimes of the Marquis de Sade and the punishments that followed him, I would like to note that in his life there was a period when he could embody the wildest and most unbridled fantasies of sex and violence. During the French Revolution, yesterday's respectable townspeople and villagers demonstrated all the facets of what, without any exaggeration, should be called sadism. It is firmly and for certain known that the "cruel and vicious" Marquis de Sade never raped a single woman and not only did not kill a single person, but did not even sign a single death warrant when he was in the position of a jury revolutionary tribunal, and then chairman Peak section. Whatever his fantasies and texts, he did not like cruelty in real life and opposed it in every possible way, saving, not destroying people, protecting, not torturing.

The only form of "violence" that he liked was the use of whips or rods during sex - he wanted to be whipped and whipped. It was not about monstrous beatings, Donatien liked it when both sides delivered several blows, the number of which was agreed in advance. It was also stipulated that the partners would whip each other; most often de Sade left the choice to the woman.

As mentioned above, for this he negotiated services with prostitutes - partly because he was more attracted to women from the common people, partly because the list of services in most brothels included whips and rods, which were considered quite acceptable aphrodisiac.

Then why did the prostitutes serving him report him to the police? Especially if there was nothing frightening and wild in the very fact of mutual whipping with rods or whips? Why did the police (who usually protected the aristocrats) always side with the accusers, even when the accusations didn't sound very credible? And why, finally, even if the women withdrew the application, the case against the Marquis did not stop?

The answer to the first question, most likely, lies in the personality of Donatien de Sade himself. He adored the game, theatrical performance, performance, and he loved it both on stage and in life. It was not enough for the Marquis de Sade to receive and apply the stipulated seven lashes. He wanted to play a full and exciting role play with "demonic passions" and strong emotions.

One must think that the Marquis de Sade, firstly, overplayed. This was characteristic of him both in literature, and in life, and in correspondence, not without reason that all his texts are full of the most incredible exaggerations, and secondly, he greatly overestimated the ability of women, who were very different from him in intellect, temperament, and addictions, to play along to him.

The women, counting on an exchange of ten blows with a rod, were frightened by the performance, which they took for the genuine madness of a dangerous madman. Most likely, most of them seriously believed that their lives were in danger. The paradox was that, unlike the courteous gentlemen-aristocrats, who suddenly turned into monsters whose victims no one else saw, the quite safe Donatien de Sade convincingly played the monster. He did exactly what was agreed, but he served it in a very exotic and frightening package.

This version is supported by the fact that after the divorce, Donatien de Sade will connect his life with the actress Constance Quesnay, a woman who shared not only his sexual preferences, but also his passion for the game, for the performance. With her, Donasien will live in full harmony until his death.

"Slander always goes hand in hand with slander"

The first time a complaint was filed by Jeanne Testar. On the streets of European cities, poor young women often met, for whom prostitution was not a permanent income, but a forced extra income, and during the day Zhanna made fans, in the evening she provided sexual services through brothels. According to her statement, the client, secluded with her, shouted that there was no God, made dangerous speeches and recited blasphemous verses. In addition, he wanted them to whip each other with a whip. Having received the fee, Zhanna ran to the police and said that she had miraculously freed herself from his terrible paws. For blasphemy, the death penalty was due, but the king pardoned the Marquis, and he was imprisoned for 15 days.

Around this time, his mother-in-law, Madame de Montreuil, intervened in the personal life of the Marquis de Sade. Madeleine de Montreuil did not think that there was something out of the ordinary in the pleasures of her son-in-law on the side - the pranks of a mischievous aristocrat, nothing more! This is how most of the men of his circle lived. But gradually Madame de Montreuil became more and more worried about the happiness of her daughter and the reputation of the family. In addition, the de Sade spouses had children whom their grandmother adored. And she wanted more and more to rein in their father: an imperious woman, accustomed to the complete subordination of her husband and daughters, she believed that it was time for her to re-educate her son-in-law.

And the son-in-law, to be sure, was restless. What a completely wild case was worth when he came to his estate with his mistress-actress and presented this woman to his peasants and local secular society as ... his wife. Moreover, his uncle, the abbot, whom the religious Madame de Montreuil respected very much, to her horror, supported the game of his nephew. Ugly and humiliating situation, to be sure. Energetic Madeleine de Montreuil took up the reforging of family personnel. To do this, she, firstly, resorted to lengthy moralizing. Secondly, she conspired with Inspector Marais of the vice police, who arrested de Sade for the first time. Now the marquis was under the supervision of the authorities, and everything that happened to him was instantly reported to his mother-in-law. Needless to say, both educational conversations and supervision wildly angered the young man. True, the stern mother-in-law softened for a while when Donatien de Sade lost his father, but it was the calm before the storm.

The second time de Sade was arrested was when the confectioner's widow Rose Keller, who was begging on the streets, complained of kidnapping and rape. Her story was as follows: first, the marquis offered her sexual services for money, and when she said that she was not like that, he, separated by a comma, hired her as a maid. Not expecting any harm, she went to his house, where the marquis beat her with a whip, then lubricated her wounds and treated her to breakfast.

She managed to escape from the abode of vice, and the evidence of her suffering was readily confirmed by twenty passers-by in the street, who were not at the scene of the crime. It is hard to believe that a woman who had just been offered sexual services agreed to immediately go to the house of the man who made such an offer if she was not going to accept it. Most likely, Rosa Keller, like Jeanne Testard, wanted to earn some money, but the fantasies of the Marquis frightened her. The arrested de Sade was perplexed: why did he have to climb out the window when he could take the money agreed in advance (he insisted on this) and calmly go out through the door?

After this story, everyone received his own: Donatien - a short prison term and a fine (then he left for his estate, where he staged theatrical performances), Rosa Keller - a huge compensation, after which she took the statement (which did not save de Sade either from prison or from fine), and word of mouth and the press a marvelous sacrifice. Newspapers and townsfolk told, not sparing black colors, how the sinister marquis kidnapped a poor but honest woman, beat her, cut her with a lancet, poured a poisonous burning potion on her wounds and was going, laughing, to torment the victim further (everyone knows that he had already tortured many women to death! It was even rumored that the Marquis gutted the unfortunate woman in his own anatomical theater!), If she had not managed to escape from the torturer by cunning.

Time passed. Donatien and René-Pelagie had children to whom de Sade paid no more attention than his parents did to him. The Marquis traveled to Holland. Then he resumed military service and rose to the rank of colonel.

And then ... Four prostitutes - Mariette Borelli, Rosa Coast, Marionette Lodge and Marianne Laverne - agreed to participate in the orgy of the Marquis and his lackey. The orgy went on neither shaky nor roll: the Marquis, about whom the most bad rumors circulated, frightened the girls with his very presence, his pathetic ranting and rods only escalated the situation. The participants in the orgy whined that they did not like everything, and ran to the cook to drink coffee. Not the most erotic setting. Then the marquis, counting on a continuation, treated the girls to sweets with an aphrodisiac - Spanish fly. This remedy was not very effective and relatively dangerous - overeating, you could get poisoned. Two girls refused, two ate. The orgy ended as usual. The disappointed marquis paid a little less than the girls expected, since he believed that he received much less than he expected, and left on business. And two girls felt bad (they did get poisoned by a Spanish fly!) And turned to the police. No one doubted that the monstrous de Sade had resorted to arsenic (and, apparently, being a complete idiot, before that he introduced himself to everyone present by his real name), but, to everyone's surprise, no traces of poison were found in the vomit of the victims. The girls recovered in a short time, but before that they managed to tell the police that the sinister Marquis not only made an attempt on their lives, but also had sex with his footman. The Marquis de Sade and his servant were charged with sodomy and ... with attempted murder. Both were sentenced to death, and since there were no convicts at the trial, then ... their straw effigies were executed. The marquis could try to challenge the verdict, or he would have to live outside the law: he was deprived of all rights, like a dead man. Hoping that everything would work out by itself, the frivolous de Sade traveled around Italy for some time, then secretly lived on his estate, and here he drove the last nail into the lid of his coffin: he nevertheless began an affair with Ani-Prosper, Rene's sister. Pelazhi.

After that, Madame de Montreuil decided that the only way out for family peace would be to put her son-in-law behind bars. First, at her insistent request, her son-in-law was captured while traveling in Sardinia and placed in a fortress. He sat there without trial or investigation for almost five months and escaped.

He was found in France and put back in jail. After a year and a half in prison, the Court of Cassation reviewed his case and found him not guilty of attempted poisoning. According to the court decision, the Marquis was to be released. But Madame Montreuil had just breathed a sigh of relief, getting rid of the unpredictable son-in-law, and was not going to give up her position. She obtained a special order, based solely on royal arbitrariness, without any judicial decision, according to which Donatien de Sade was left indefinitely in custody.

"Whoever wishes to fight alone against the public interest must know that he will perish"

« No, the prison broke me, destroyed me. I've been here for so long! (...) You don't know what seventeen months in prison is - that's seventeen years, seventeen centuries! (...) This is too much even for those crimes that human language calls the most vile names. So take pity on me and ask for me - not indulgence, but severity, not mercy, but judgment; judges, judges I ask; judges cannot be denied to the accused", - Edmond Dantes, who later became the Count of Monte Cristo, said to the inspector at the Chateau d'If, causing the constant sympathy of the reader.

The Marquis de Sade could have said the same. The only difference is that a living person, Donatien de Sade, unlike a literary character, spent not 17 months, but 14 years in the walls of different prisons - from 1776 to 1790. He stayed there simply because it was more convenient for Madame and Monsieur de Montreuil: what else can he do?

While incarcerated, the Marquis de Sade wrote most of his novels.

It is quite understandable why many readers and researchers find de Sade's works disgusting: there is almost nothing else in them, if only to perceive these texts as real story or as preaching a certain way of life. Many believe that the Marquis created the sadistic world he desired, full of cruel pleasures. However, as practice showed, he did not aspire to such a world. Donatien de Sade was sure that the world and society were unfair and hypocritical both in general and in relation to him personally.

And he developed this theme in every possible way in his texts. Perhaps he seemed to himself much more like the innocent Justine accused of crimes she did not commit, from his novel Justine, or the Unfortunate Fate of Virtue, than like the successful, prosperous sadistic Juliette from Juliette's History, or the Successes of Vice.

Words spoken about Justine: " The case against the unfortunate woman who has neither credit nor protection is completely a foregone conclusion in France, where it is considered that poverty is completely incompatible with virtue.... "- in general, can be attributed to de Sade himself. He also had no protection in the form of money or patrons, so he spent most of his life behind bars for crimes he did not commit. Although, of course, he was not an innocent and meek creature.

Often, de Sade's texts are interpreted as precursors of Nietzsche's philosophy - a kind of challenge to morality, virtue, humanity, and ultimately God. But much more it seems that this is a bitter question to a vicious world, hypocritically pretending to be virtuous: “Where is justice? Where is compassion? Where is the kindness?

Another reason for writing his violent novels was most likely the aggression he couldn't help but feel. He was in prison, without trial or investigation, on more than idiotic charges, life passed by, and it was irretrievably lost. best years. Ann Prosper died of appendicitis. He was insanely jealous of his wife, which looked especially strange, given his own infidelities and her unwavering care and support. Exhausted by his rudeness and unfair reproaches, she could not stand it and went to the monastery, and then divorced him. A man accustomed to living in excellent conditions was deprived of all the pleasures available to the free. All this happened because of the whim and permissiveness of a woman who had already ruined his life once by forbidding him to marry Ann Prosper.

In letters to his wife, he poured tons of poison and hatred on his mother-in-law. If we take on faith everything that he wrote in irritation, then there is no doubt that he would have dealt with the people who put him behind bars, so that all the sadists of the world would shudder. " No, I will never forgive those who betrayed me, and I will not grace them with a glance while I live. If my business had gone on for half a year, or even a year, and that would have been the price I would have to pay for it - yes, then I might have forgotten; but when it undermines both my sanity and my health, when it forever covers me and my children in disgrace, when, in a word, it leads - as you will see - to the most terrible consequences in the future, those who, in any way have had a hand in this, duplicitous, hypocritical liars, whom I will hate with all my heart and soul until the day I die. (...) I assure you that if I could do that, the first law I would establish would be that the President (as he called Madame Montreuil) should be chained to a stake and burned in a very slow fire».

He invented dozens of sophisticated executions for Madame de Montreuil and described them all. However, in fact, when he had a brilliant opportunity to get even, he not only did not harm these people, he protected them. In the early days of the French Revolution, the "prisoner of despotism," Citizen Sade, was released. Madame de Montreuil was indignant and looked for ways to plant him already under the new regime, but this time she was not lucky. And after some time, Citizen Sadou was offered the post of chairman of the Peak section: now he was free to execute and pardon.

The de Montreuils lived in his section. And Donasien, in his fantasies, who invented all possible and impossible tortures and executions for his mother-in-law, urgently added the names of his father-in-law and mother-in-law to the list of innocent persons, under no circumstances to be destroyed.

So de Sade just vented his anger in writing. And he was angry not only at his mother-in-law. All the misanthropy of a man branded a criminal, living in isolation and subjected to bullying, spilled over into the pages of his texts. As always, Donatien de Sade blamed anyone but himself.

He cursed the nepotism that made him dependent on his father and mother-in-law, and, not sparing the bloody colors, poured out on paper the scenes of the reprisal of parents against children and the abuse of children against their parents. He denounced the Church, in which hypocritical priests did everything for which they condemned others. He blamed a society where those who debauched to the same extent receive nevertheless different punishments. And he poured out on paper the ideas of violating all moral and human laws. In short, let off steam.

"No one has the right to direct the actions of another"

The Marquis de Sade is often said to paint an attractive picture of vice. By no means! His texts are rather an almost mocking, grotesque heap of nasty scenes of cruelty and debauchery.

At some point, if you still force yourself to wade through this hypertrophied text, you get the feeling that the author is mocking both the layman, who is shocked by these scenes, and his own depraved characters, who have hundreds, yes there, thousands, no , tens of thousands of victims and lovers of both sexes (one somehow involuntarily recalls couriers, couriers, couriers ... can you imagine, 35 thousand couriers alone! ), The most ridiculous and inexplicable betrayals and crimes are piled up, ending with the sadists selflessly exterminating each other, resorting to executions, often emphatically grotesque. And how else can you call the scene when the slutty girlfriends dump their companion into the mouth of Vesuvius? It is extremely unfair to believe that Donatien de Sade created the cruel world that he described from his head. He perfectly saw what people are capable of, regardless of whether they are aristocrats or ordinary people. The French Revolution will show that respectable citizens, who yesterday were horrified by the behavior of a dissolute marquis and, of course, never read his texts (if only because they have not yet been published), are capable of such cruelties that de Sade could not even invent. Reveling in impunity, they will confirm his dark theories, killing women, children and the elderly, torturing the helpless simply because they can. Most of them will not end up either in prison or in a lunatic asylum - the revolution and the people's will will write everything off! And here it will involuntarily seem that de Sade's cruel texts to the point of boredom are frighteningly realistic. He did not form the philosophy of sadism, he grew up and lived in a society that fully implemented it.

De Sade was a product of his time, but the best: he only fantasized, moreover, about what he did not want to embody. The rest did.

Although the texts of Donatien de Sade are called the preaching of unpunished vice, it seems quite obvious that de Sade's vicious heroes are punished: they are lonely, do not know warmth, and are not connected with anyone. Their world, devoid of both God and neighbors, is empty, because other people simply do not exist for them, there are only objects. And perhaps the easiest way to show this idea is by absolutizing it. Yes, in many of de Sade's texts, cruel and immoral sadists, capable of anything, are not placed in a cell for their crimes. They turn their own life into a camera. There is nothing wrong with pleasure as such, but they are deprived of pleasure, because they cease to be interested in everything, including pleasure. So, besides the outer world, the inner world also becomes empty. It seems to me that few people have managed to show so fully the misery and loneliness of evil, even when it "triumphs."

Carriages of kindergarten aggression mixed with violent sexual fantasies. One must think that a person who loves sex and has been deprived of it for many years had something to dream about.

But here, in addition to pornographic fantasies, there is a lot of ridicule and almost mockery. Not without reason, in the scene of a phantasmagorically creepy group sex full of violence, a dialogue appears: "What do you want me to do?" Noircey asked. “Meditate,” the Minister replied curtly. “You will hold a candle and reflect on the vicissitudes of fate.”

De Sade has frankly black humor, most similar to the humor of sadistic nursery rhymes or the animated series South Park, the creators of which "offend everyone equally."

"The most intimate duty of a true republican is to recognize the merits of great people"

It's funny that Bastille Day is still celebrated every year in France. The brutal massacre of the garrison gave freedom to seven prisoners, among whom were four counterfeiters and one mentally ill old aristocrat, whom relatives asked to be kept in the Bastille, since conditions in most mental hospitals were worse than in prisons.

De Sade partly contributed to the storming of the Bastille: when he was deprived of walks, he became so furious that he grabbed a special pipe with a funnel (with the help of such devices, prisoners poured sewage into the ditch) and began to shout through the bars that prisoners were being killed in the temple of despotism. Brawler naked, not allowed to take a single thing, was transferred to the Charenton mental hospital. And two weeks later the mob seized the temple of despotism...

In 1790, the revolution opened the doors of the cell for Donatien. Aged, stout from a sedentary lifestyle, without a livelihood (citizen Sade could not claim income from his possessions, and his wife divorced him), on the one hand, yesterday's prisoner of despotism, on the other - the day before yesterday's marquis and landowner. The sons of the marquis emigrated, the daughter lived with her mother in the monastery. (Despised family bonds de Sade nevertheless visited his daughter until the end of her days, although he was not delighted with her, finding her ugly and unintelligent.)

The Marquis earned money by journalism, tried to publish his novels and stage plays (without much success), was horrified by revolutionary terror. During this time, he did many good things, such as helping a number of people whose lives were in danger to flee abroad.

In the first year of his free life, he met the 33-year-old divorced actress Constance Quesnay, she was 17 years younger than Donasien. Until the end of the days of the Marquis (that is, for another 25 years), these two were tied by the most tender and strong relationship, together they went through numerous trials and vicissitudes of fate. Constance had a seven-year-old son from his first marriage, Charles, who lived with them; Donatien carefully raised his stepson in the spirit of respect for his mother.

In 1793, the marquis was arrested again - for moderate views, the proof of which was, among other things, the salvation of his wife's relatives. And when he was already in prison, the old story about the Marquis, who almost killed an honest beggar, surfaced ... That was the end: now he was accused of pretending to be a true patriot of the republic, remaining its ideological enemy. The prison threatened to become the last lifetime home of the Marquis de Sade: another bloody wave of executions was going on in Paris. " We buried 1800 people in 35 days”, Donasien said about his fellow prisoners.

He had already been sentenced, even listed for execution at number 11 of the 28 victims scheduled for that day, but ... either Constance Quesnay gave a bribe, or there was some kind of malfunction in the well-functioning state machine of death, but the marquis was spared that day. And then the revolution drowned in its own blood, the terror ended, Donatien de Sade was released.

“The existence of martyrs only indicates that, on the one hand, there is enthusiasm, and on the other, resistance”

Several years passed in relative prosperity. The Marquis de Sade received some income from his possessions, wrote a lot without abandoning his former style, several of his works were even published - both anonymously and under his own name, which brought much coveted money and caused another stream of indignation. It is not known what would have happened next, but the marquis managed to ridicule Zoloe and her two henchmen in a pamphlet, and the satire was tough, very accurate and quite recognizable, although the author changed the names of the prototypes.

The text came out anonymously (after all, de Sade was not a suicide), but he was quickly figured out and ... again put under arrest without trial or investigation. And what could be the court? During the arrest, Donatien de Sade was accused of writing immoral novels, but these novels had been freely sold in France for several years, and no one even stuttered aloud about the satire on Napoleon. So the charge was dropped, but the punishment was not. The Marquis de Sade spent two years in a prison for political prisoners, then in a prison-type lunatic asylum, and finally was again sent to the Charenton mental hospital. The Marquis de Sade was 63 years old, the next 11 - until his death - he spent in the clinic without the right to leave it.

“Old age is rarely pleasant, because with its advent in life there comes a time when it is no longer possible to hide a single flaw”

True, it was his mildest conclusion. The former abbot, and the current director of Charenton, Francois Simone de Culmier, was a humane person, he immediately realized that the Marquis was not crazy, and treated this controversial old man with sympathy. Constance was allowed to live in the apartments allocated to Donatien. She was free to leave the clinic, so that the Marquis had books, paper, and good food. Sometimes his adult sons visited him (the eldest son of Donatien died early, much to his father's grief), and he corresponded friendly with his son Constance Charles. He still wrote a lot and still mostly erotic thrillers with a heap of horrors and debauchery, now on historical themes. But among other things, de Sade created the novel "Marquise de Ganges", where, with the help of a noble heroine, he glorified ... virtue. It is generally accepted that "the old lecher was pretending", but a man in his declining years could well partially change his views.

The prisoner of Charenton was also allowed to walk in the hospital garden. But most importantly, Donatien de Sade had the opportunity to stage performances with the help of other residents of the clinic: the director had a theory that this had a beneficial effect on patients. Plays by de Sade, classical works and scenes from the inner world of the sick were played on the stage of Charenton (so de Sade can be called the forefather of psychodrama: these performances brought relief to suffering people). The audience went to the performances with pleasure, including directors of professional theaters. Several times the authorities tried to transfer Donatien de Sade to an ordinary prison with cruel conditions or arrange prison life in a clinic, but Culmier managed to defend his ward.

In the last years of his life, with the consent of Constance, who shared his views on sexuality, the old marquis began an affair with the young daughter of the hospital laundress Madeleine Leclerc (the girl’s mother knew about these relationships and, oddly enough, approved of them: firstly, she hoped that her daughter will gain good manners and knowledge from an aristocrat, and secondly, she hoped that he would be her patronage in her career as an actress). Madeleine was delighted with the charming and sexually skilled Marquis. This tripartite alliance continued until de Sade's death. Leaving a generous will in favor of Constance Quesnay and her son, the Marquis Donatien de Sade died of an asthma attack on December 2, 1814. Until the last days, he was in his right mind and memory, wrote a lot and indulged in erotic pleasures in reality and on paper.

“Kill me or accept me as I am, for I will not change,” wrote the Marquis de Sade from prison to his wife in 1783. Indeed, one of the most radical writers of the 18th century had no other options. De Sade, an unbridled lecher, was then serving an 11-year prison sentence, but did not betray his principles and addictions in order to reduce the term. Any deviation from one's natural inclinations was tantamount to death for the marquis.

Portrait of the Marquis de Sade

De Sade was without a doubt one of the most defining figures of the Enlightenment. He admired Rousseau, although the jailers forbade him to read the works of the philosopher. But at the same time, he dealt a serious blow to the principles of the supremacy of reason and rationality, choosing instead of them rebellion, extremes and anti-humanism. These features of his resented his contemporaries, but caused a great resonance in the art, literature and philosophy of the past two centuries.

De Sade spent a total of 32 years in prisons and hospitals

Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, born in 1740, had a very controversial fate. Born an aristocrat, he nevertheless adhered to the far left and during the French Revolution was a delegate to the National Convention. He relinquished his title during the Terror, when he wrote some of the most provocative novels ever written by a writer, while at the same time writing mediocre plays lacking any significant originality.

His very name is reminiscent of de Sade's inclinations towards violent forms of sexual relations, although even a cursory glance at the literature of the 18th century shows that the Marquis was far from alone in such addictions. Michel Foucault, the great philosopher of the second half of the 20th century, once remarked that sadism is not "an ancient practice like Eros" but "a major cultural fact that appeared just at the end of the eighteenth century."

Like his predecessors, Voltaire and Rousseau, de Sade wrote novels that can be read in two ways: both as simple fiction and as philosophical treatises. Even the most violent scenes in his books are not, in fact, pornographic. His early novel The 120 Days of Sodom, with endless descriptions of cuts, fractures, sacrifices, bloodletting and death, does not cause any sexual arousal. And even his best novel, “Justine” (which features a libertine priest corrupting a girl with a wafer for communion), caused indignation in France not with overly frank descriptions, but with extreme disregard for the prevailing morality, because the text not only allowed, but praised mockery of one’s neighbor .

De Sade took the principle of Kant's famous categorical imperative, which obliges a person to follow the moral law, and turned it inside out. True morality, according to de Sade, consists in following one's darkest and most destructive passions to their final limit, even at the expense of human life. De Sade had little objection to assassination, although he did vehemently oppose the death penalty. To kill in a fit of passion is one thing, but to justify murder by law is barbaric.

“People condemn passions,” he wrote, “forgetting that philosophy kindles its torch from their fire.” From the point of view of de Sade, cruel and vile desires are not a deviation, but the basic, fundamental elements of human nature. Moreover, the constructions of reason so venerated by Enlightenment philosophers are only a by-product of deeply rooted base desires: these desires rule people to a much greater extent than any rational motives. Nobility is hypocritical, and cruelty is natural, therefore the only morality is the absence of morality, and vice is the only virtue.

De Sade indulged in excesses not only in his novels, but also in reality, for which he spent a third of his life in prisons (including the Bastille in 1789) and psychiatric hospitals. “The intermissions in my life were too long,” he wrote in his notes.

His books were banned shortly after the death of the marquis in 1814. But while de Sade's manuscripts were gathering dust on the shelf, his cruel philosophy was spreading among admirers. The famous series of etchings by Francisco Goya, "Caprichos", "The Disasters of War", the later "Proverbs" - both here and there, cruelty prevailed over virtue, and the irrational defeated reason. “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters” is the title of his most famous work, which depicts a sleeping man (perhaps the artist himself) being chased by nightmarish monsters. Michel Foucault considered Goya's etchings, especially the darkly satirical Caprichos, a natural complement to de Sade's writings. According to him, in both cases "the Western world saw the possibility of overcoming the mind through violence," and after de Sade and Goya, "unreason belongs to the decisive moments of any creativity." The sadistic vision of people who have gone beyond the bounds of reason, and the human body in its extreme, unnatural states, was continued in the works of many artists of the early 19th century, especially Eugene Delacroix and Theodore Géricault.

By the end of his life, the Marquis asks to be forever erased from human history.

But actually the books of de Sade were little known. It was not until the end of the century that the marquis was properly recognized. Indeed, he gave many a chance to cover sexual unbridledness with a certain literary veil: for example, the English poet of the late 19th century, Charles Swinburne, who idolized de Sade, wrote long, lengthy poems about the corporal punishment of boys under a pseudonym. But the truly great writers of the time saw in de Sade something much more important, namely, a philosopher of the world turned inside out. “I am a wound - and a blow with damask steel. A hand shattered by a kat, and I am a kat hand!” - wrote Charles Baudelaire in the brilliant collection "Flowers of Evil", one of the first works that returned de Sade's principles to literature. Guillaume Apollinaire, the poet who coined the term "surrealism", was the editor of de Sade's first complete works. And many other surrealists looked for inspiration in his texts, where scenes of sex and violence are sometimes impossible from a purely anatomical point of view.

A descendant of the Marquis Thibaut de Sade advertises his new champagne with a clear name

Traces of de Sade's work are everywhere, but he still remains a frightening figure. After all, he has no place for cold and objective analysis; it engages the body as actively as the brain, and the mind is forced to obey deeper, animal instincts. In Philip Kaufmann's "The Quill of the Marquis de Sade" with Geoffrey Rush in leading role the Marquis was made a victim of the struggle for liberal, law-abiding freedom of expression, and at the same time a completely fictional scene of torture was inserted - in real life, de Sade died quite peacefully.

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Marquis de Sade about himself: "Imperious, choleric, irritable, going to extremes in everything - in atheism and debauchery ..."

Donatien Alphonse Francois, Comte de Sade (fr. Donatien Alphonse Francois, comte de Sade), better known by his literary name Marquis de Sade (fr. marquis de Sade; 1740-1814) is a French writer. According to his name, sexual satisfaction obtained by causing pain or humiliation to another person received (in the works of the sexologist R. von Kraft-Ebing) the name of sadism (later the words sadism, sadist began to be used in a broader sense).

Sade was brought to trial and imprisoned for violence against a woman, but by order of King Louis XV, the persecution was stopped. In 1772, he was sentenced to death by Parliament "for sodomy and poisoning" (he was accused of giving prostitutes mixed in food Spanish fly, known as an unhealthy aphrodisiac, during an orgy). Sade fled, was arrested, fled again, and recaptured; the death sentence was commuted to imprisonment.

In 1784, Garden was transferred to the Bastille, where he began to write his novels and dramas. Later he was transferred to the Charenton psychiatric hospital, but in 1790 he received his freedom. (The popular belief that the Marquis de Sade was among the prisoners of the Bastille during its storming on July 14, 1789, is not true [Source?]). In 1791, the most famous of his novels appeared: Justine ou les malheurs de la vertu (Justine, or Virtue's Misfortunes), which was published in a second edition in 1797, with even more frank episodes; its continuation was the novel "Juliette" ("Juliette", 1798).

In 1801, after the increased strictness of morals under the dictatorship of Bonaparte, the publication of these novels was confiscated, and Sade was again imprisoned.

In the 1830s, the romantics, and in the 20th century, the surrealists and existentialists returned to understanding the personality and work of de Sade, not so much as a model of sexual and mental pathology, but as a consistent example of the philosophy of libertinage, to a psychological approach that was ahead of its time.

For more than two centuries, there have been disputes about whether de Sade's work is pornography. It is impossible to give an unambiguous answer to this question. On the one hand, 90% of the text in de Sade's novels "Justine", "Juliette", "120 Days of Sodom" is a detailed description of perverted forms of sex. On the other hand, this description has an alienated, purely technical character, de Sade describes the actions of the participants in orgies, but extremely rarely and extremely briefly - their feelings. But it is precisely the description of voluptuous sensations that is hallmark pornographic literature designed to arouse the reader's sexual arousal. In the mechanical description of de Sade, one feels more the disclosure of human nature, free from any restrictions. sometimes emphatically grotesque, deliberately repulsive, bringing the idea of ​​permissiveness to the point of absurdity, perhaps even deliberately. In between orgies, de Sade's heroes indulge in philosophical discussions, and the treatise "Philosophy in the Boudoir", dressed in an artistic form, is also devoted to this. In addition, of all the literary heritage of de Sade, only his infamous works are published, so it is extremely difficult to give an objective assessment of all his work.

Main aspects of philosophy
Denial of the division of society, traditional for his time, into the nobility, the clergy and the third estate. For de Sade, there are only the class of rulers and the class of slaves. Denial of the division of the intellectual elite of society, traditional for his time, into conservative Christians and anti-Christian humanists. The phrase from the novel "Juliette" "Christians are no less contemptible for me than Jews" allows us to rank de Sade among the anti-Christian anti-Semites, of whom only Voltaire was known in that era.
The idea that killing is good for society, otherwise peoples will perish entirely from overpopulation and lack of resources. Thomas Malthus had similar ideas. Interest in the behavior of a person from whom all restrictions have been removed, from social to those imposed by God. Libertinage.

Heritage
Creation of techniques for shocking the consumer of art products, which greatly influenced the development of surrealism, existentialism, and even mass culture. Philosophical and aesthetic heritage of libertinage, hedonism. The creation of works that, at first, arousing natural interest, inevitably lead to rejection with their deliberate, transcendent, senseless cruelty, perhaps, according to the author’s intention, thus pushing a person in the opposite direction from the idea of ​​permissiveness, to a conventionally Christian moral code.

Will
Before his death, the Marquis de Sade wrote a will in which he repented of his errors and asked to be buried in the forest and pour acorns on his grave so that the road to his grave would be forgotten and his very name would be erased from human memory. The will was not fulfilled.

(Wikipedia article)