Crimes of Love by de Sade Marquis; Coward David;

Author:de Sade, Marquis; Coward, David;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, UK
Published: 2005-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

ERNESTINE

A Swedish Tale

AFTER Italy, England, and Russia, few European countries seemed as interesting to me as Sweden. But if my imagination was ignited by the wish to see the celebrated regions which once gave birth to all the Alarics, Attilas, and Theodorics*—I mean those heroes who led vast hordes of troops and, confronting the ambition of the imperial eagle which sought to cover the world with its wings, made the Romans tremble even unto the gates of their capital—if, on the other hand, my soul yearned to take flight in the homeland of Gustavus Wasa, Christine, and Charles XII*—whose fame is of a quite different order, since the first1 achieved renown for his enlightened philosophy, so rare and precious in a monarch, and for the commendable good sense which casts aside religious systems when they seek to thwart both the authority of the government, to which they should be subordinate, and the good of the people, which is the sole purpose of lawmaking; the second for her greatness of soul which led her to prefer solitude and her library to the vain pomp of royalty; and the third for his heroic prowess which earned him the everlasting appellation of Alexander—if, I was saying, I was stirred by all these different motives, did I not also long more fervently still to see and admire a people, so wise, sober, and magnanimous which may be called the model of the north?

It was with this purpose in mind that I left Paris on 20 July 1774 and, after travelling through Holland, Westphalia, and Denmark, arrived in Sweden in about the middle of the year following.

After I had spent three months in Stockholm my curiosity was first whetted by the celebrated mines of which I had read so many descriptions. There I imagined I might perhaps stumble across adventures similar to those reported by the Abbé Prévost in the first volume of his anecdotes.* And so I did… but with very different results!

I therefore travelled to Uppsala, on the River Fyris which divides the town in two. For long Sweden’s capital, Uppsala is still today its largest city after Stockholm. I stayed there for three weeks and then moved on to Falun, ancient birthplace of the Scythians:* the inhabitants of this capital of Dalecarlia still retain its customs and costume. Leaving Falun, I journeyed on to the mine at Taperg, one of the largest in Sweden.*

Mines, for so long the state’s major source of revenue, soon became dependent on the English, because of the debts contracted by their owners with a nation which is always quick to extend a helping hand to those it believes it can some day gobble up, once it has wrecked their trade or undermined their power through loans made at extortionate rates.

Once I reached Taperg my imagination began to work, even before I had descended into those subterranean regions where high finance and the greed of a few men swallow up the lives of so many others.

Since I was

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.