Letters From Prison by Sade Marquis de

Author:Sade, Marquis de [Sade, Marquis de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philosophy, Classics, History, Biography
Amazon: B007TV3MXA
Goodreads: 18908489
Publisher: Arcade
Published: 1976-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

1. By point of departure Sade, always on the lookout for signals, or seeing them when they do not exist, is asking the marquise for the key to the code, which of course she does not have.

2. The signal, real or imagined.

3. His first detention in Vincennes in 1763 as a result of the Jeanne Testard affair, and the second in the chateau of Saumur in 1768 following the Rose Keller scandal.

36. To Madame de Sade

[Toward March 28, 1781]

Good Lord, dear friend, how much I admire Father Massillon’s1 sermons! They lift my spirits, they enchant me, they absolutely delight me. ’Tis no bigot, this man who is speaking to you and who, framing truths on all sides that the impious deny, using not the point but the flat side of his sword to make his point. ’Tis no pedant bristling with sophisms and who is trying to win you over solely by frightening you to death. ’Tis to the heart this preacher directs his maxims; ’tis the heart he seeks to win over and the heart he constantly enthralls. With each word one finds a gentle father looking out for the welfare of his children; each sentence is one that a friend might address to a friend he sees on the brink of the precipice. What purity! What moral power! and what a happy blend of strength and simplicity! At times his swift eloquence is like a stream that sweeps away all the soul’s blemishes; the next moment, his tender compassion, as if frightened by the great commotion it has just produced, now covers the wounds with naught but a sweet and soothing balm, wherewith he wins over both the heart and mind. Great God! how was it possible that Louis XIV had so many millions of his subjects’ throats cut in the Cévennes2 while Massillon was saying to him, “Sire, kings are given us by the Eternal to be the salvation of their people; comfort them, you will be their father and twice over their master; be a peacemaker, Sire, the most glorious conquests are those that win over hearts.” And during that period not a day went without a dozen or fifteen poor wretches being broken on the wheel in Nîmes or in Montpellier, merely because they refused to believe that one had to go to Mass. And there you have the effect of the most beautiful and the holiest truths upon the heart of the man dominated by his passions! Nothing can alter their impetuousness, and when he is forced to blush because of them, ultimately his pride, coming swiftly to the rescue, furnishes him with shameful excuses to color them with a pious zeal . . . And what an example I have before my eyes! Are we not going to see, two weeks from now, the torturer of my life draw nigh to the altars, there to receive her God, just as calmly, just as serenely, as if her soul, drunk with a desire for

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