It was the year 2000: the film was released on the screens Sade by Benoît Jacquot, with Isild Le Besco (still a minor) in the role of the young girl to be initiated, and Daniel Auteuil in that of the divine marquis. The writer then experienced the height of his rehabilitation, as Michel Delon confirms, who was responsible for the edition of Sade in Pléiade (three volumes published in 1990, 1995 and 1998) in the wake of Sade alivethe monumental biographical trilogy by Jean-Jacques Pauvert published in the late 1980s: “In 1990, we were still in a post-1968 euphoria. The ban on certain texts by Sade being displayed had fallen into disuse, and the publication of the Pléiade volumes seemed an irreversible recognition. It was ignoring the pendulum movements of History…”
The recent Jacquot affair, during which the abuse he inflicted on his various companions was revealed, has led some to ask themselves this question: do Sade’s admirers (like Casanova’s) necessarily hide polymorphous perverts who are happy to be able to hide their failings behind aesthetic screens? Recently, the name of Sade has no longer been in the odor of sanctity, as Michel Delon tells us again: “When you visit the exhibition Surrealism At the Centre Pompidou, we see that of the two tutelary figures of the movement, Lautréamont and Sade, the first remains in the spotlight and the second disappears, reduced to a few editions, to an unpleasant object by Giacometti and to some other allusion in the section ‘The Tears of Eros’. Annie Le Brun, who just passed away this summer, would have found the words to stigmatize this sleight of hand…”
Sade died at the age of 74 in 1814, having spent a good twenty years of his life in prison and then in an asylum. Should he be sentenced again? The floor is given to the defense. In a letter sent to his wife in 1781, Sade pleaded his own cause in these words: “Yes, I am a libertine, I admit it; I have conceived everything that can be conceived of in this genre, but I have certainly not done everything that I have conceived, and I will certainly never do it. I am a libertine, but I am not a criminal or a murderer.” A very comprehensive and magnificently illustrated book that has just been published by Perrin allows us to weigh the pros and cons. The author, Christian Lacombe, recalls what Sade’s original sin is, at the origin of his black legend: the Marseille affair. On June 27, 1772, accompanied by his lackey, Sade invited four prostitutes to a game of tricks. Problem: he made the participants eat sweets containing cantharide powder. This aphrodisiac made the four women terribly ill. Sade was accused of having poisoned them, and there he was locked up in the fortress of Miolans, from which he escaped like Casanova from the prison of Plombs… From then on, supported for a long time by his wife but pursued by his ferocious mother-in-law, who had connections and preferred him incarcerated, Sade would spend most of his time in the hole.
Sade, a friend of women?
Is it a blessing in disguise? Most certainly. Locked up here and there, this flamboyant adventurer was passionate about reading and found the time and concentration necessary to become a prolific writer – “All human happiness lies in the imagination”, he said. “Atheist to the point of fanaticism”, as he defined himself, ahead of his time when he denounced the death penalty, a much more sensitive spirit than one might think (he venerated Mme de Sévigné and Mme de Lafayette), he was also a charitable man. In 1793, then free and well placed in the Piques section, he learned that his in-laws were at risk of being sent to the guillotine. He intervenes to save them: “The Montreuils are my greatest enemies. They are also beggars, recognized scoundrels whom I could destroy with a word if I wanted to. But I pity them, I return them with contempt and indifference for all the harm they have done me.” The Consulate and then the Empire will be less merciful towards him. In 1803, the prefect Dubois sends to the Charenton lunatic asylum “this man being in a state of perpetual libertine dementia”. He will not leave it again until his death eleven years later. What is he criticized for? His novels. Napoleon, who is not a choirboy, sees in Justine or the Misfortunes of Virtue “the most abominable book that the most depraved imagination has ever conceived.” As for the deceitful Fouché, the indestructible Minister of Police, he detests his “execrable works.”
During his stays in prison, Sade would have met Mirabeau or Choderlos de Laclos, to whom he can be compared. Nothing has been said about this devil of a man until we have addressed the thorny question of his relationship with women. Apollinaire wrote: “The Marquis de Sade, this freest spirit that has yet existed, had particular ideas about women and wanted them to be as free as men.” Contrary to certain clichés, can we see Sade as a friend of women? Absolutely, according to academic Stéphanie Genand: “Sade is at an exciting crossroads. Our era and the eye-opening that #MeToo has provoked highlight the formidable complexity of what his work tells us about sexual violence and gender relations. The time is therefore ideal to take Sade out of purgatory, or out of the preconceived ideas that have already reigned too much concerning him: that he would be an apologist for violence, a cruel libertine, a misogynist. On the contrary, Sade questions our astonishing ability not to questioning injustice or domination; to consider violence against women or power relations or economic predation, for example, as obvious and natural. Her work is intended to be emancipatory, for women and for humanity in general. The great abrasion she engages in aims to free us from the prejudices and false authorities that blind us and prevent us from being free. This is obviously even more true for female trajectories: from the ideal of virginity to the necessity of marriage or the stereotype of modesty, Sade reveals the specific alienations that weigh on women and prevent them from acquiring control of their bodies, their desire and their existence.” So Sade would be a modern who can still inspire our contemporaries? Christian Lacombe is convinced: “For the first time in literary history, Sade observes, deepens, notes, deciphers desire and enjoyment. In his work, he shows how sexual desire, if not thought about, produces disorder, and what disorder! Today, a novelist like Emma Becker continues, in a different way, this questioning of desire as a troublemaker…”
Basically, what the libertine marquis will always be criticized for is his aristocratic elitism – this was already Simone de Beauvoir’s thesis in her essay Should Sade be burned? If his name is very famous, known to all, his work remains hidden. When we ask Michel Delon, Stéphanie Genand and Christian Lacombe which title a novice should start with to discover Sade, they advise us respectively The Crimes of Love And Philosophy in the Boudoir, Aline and Valcour and the correspondence, and The Story of Juliet or the Prosperities of ViceOne thing is certain: whatever one thinks of Sade, it is better to immerse oneself in his revolutionary books than in the sinister filmography of Benoît Jacquot.
The Marquis de Sade. The Chained Libertineby Christian Lacombe. Perrin, 251 p., €25.
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