Carter Brief Lives: Marquis de Sade

1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-1-78094-015-1
Verlag: Hesperus Press Ltd.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 3, 120 Seiten

Reihe: Brief Lives

As explicit in his prose as he was in his private life, the Marquis de Sade remains one of the most controversial writers of all time. This new biography, by the acclaimed translator and author David Carter, promises to shock as much as it informs. Arrested many times for sexual misdemeanors, the Marquis de Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille, where he was writing 120 Days of Sodom and The Misfortunes of Virtue at the time that it was stormed in 1789. After the French Revolution he was again imprisoned and sent to an asylum, where he wrote diaries and plays. This concise biography offers a fresh look at a relentlessly compelling figure with a fascinating life of scandal and imprisonment.

Dr David Carter has taught at St Andrews and Southampton universities in the UK and has been Professor of Communicative English at Yonsei University, Seoul. His Ph.D. was on Freud's theories of creativity and aesthetics and he has taught on Freud and Jung, and also on the German Romantics, the brothers Grimm and the 'Märchen' tradition.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Carter, David

Leseproben

Childhood, the Military and Marriage 1740–63

The child born on 2nd June 1740 in the Hôtel de Condé, Paris, should have been called Louis-Aldonse-Donatien de Sade, according to his mother’s wishes, but, with so many new-born babies dying at the time, the christening was hurriedly put in the hands of some servants. Entrusting such important matters to servants was quite common at this time, and in this case the servants obviously thought that one of the father’s names, François, would be more appropriate, instead of Louis, and, as the Provençal name of Aldonse was completely unknown to them, they substituted Alphonse. The child who was to become infamous as the Marquis de Sade was thus finally named Donatien-Alphonse-François de Sade.

De Sade’s father, the Comte Jean-Baptiste-François-Joseph de Sade, was born in Avignon in 1702, to a family of Italian origin that had settled in Provence in the twelfth century, and he inherited the estates of Lacoste and Saumane and one at Arles in the Camargue, as well as sharing ownership of another at Mazan. On 13th November 1733 he married Marie-Eléonore de Maillé de Carman in the chapel of the same Hôtel de Condé where his son was to be born. His bride was the daughter of the Comtesse de Maillé, who had been lady-in-waiting to the Princesse de Condé. Both the princess and the prince attended the wedding and, shortly after, Marie-Eléonore was also appointed lady-in-waiting. For the first few years of his marriage the Comte de Sade lived separately from his wife, fulfilling his duties as aide-de-camp to the Maréchal de Villars. A daughter was born to the couple in 1737 but survived for only two years. In 1739 the count was appointed lieutenant-general, and it was in 1740, when the Prince de Condé died, that he was sent to Cologne. He was at the Court of Cologne at the time of his son’s birth.

The Princesse de Condé died only eighteen months after her husband, when the boy Donatien was just one year old. As a result his mother ceased to be lady-in-waiting but was allowed to stay on in the Hôtel de Condé to bring up both her own son and the five-year-old orphaned prince. It is likely that Donatien resented his position as the younger, weaker child, who was not shown the respect paid to the older prince, and it must have been hurtful as well as mysterious to him when his parents suddenly decided in 1744 to send him away to be brought up by other members of the family. It is possible that one reason for the parents’ decision was to free the countess to accompany her husband on some of his missions. In August 1746 another daughter was born, but only survived for five days.

Donatien was sent to the home of his paternal grandmother in Avignon. She was a kind old woman who had mothered ten children, four of her daughters having taken holy orders. The boy stayed there only for about a year and a half, when he was sent to live with another relative, a forty-year-old uncle, who, if not exactly a role-model for him, undoubtedly opened his eyes to an alternative view of morality. This was his father’s younger brother, the Abbé Paul Aldonse de Sade d’Ebreuil, who fulfilled his priestly duties at the Cistercian monastery at Saint-Léger d’Ebreuil, near Limoges, but entertained mistresses in his chateau at Saumane. There was also much local gossip about his relationships with the proprietress of a tavern who was notorious as a prostitute, and with a maid by the name of Marie Curt. Interestingly, while the count’s finances declined drastically over the years, the abbé had a sizeable income. He had a benefice at the monastery and also received a generous pension from the Archbishop of Arles.

The sight of his new home must have been daunting to the young Donatien: the Château de Saumane had all the appearance of a strongly fortified castle, with walls six feet thick, openings for cannons, a moat, drawbridge and portcullis. However, the abbé had had the interior well decorated, creating also a studio, where he could pursue his interests in natural history, and an extensive orangerie. Most influential on the development of his young nephew proved to be his well-stocked library. Apart from presenting the boy with an example of how to live a double life, the abbé thus also awoke in him a taste for culture.

The library contained the major works of French literature by authors such as Racine, Molière, Boileau, Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot, as well as philosophical works by Hobbes, Locke, Bayle, Montesquieu, etc. There were also hidden corners where the abbé concealed his collection of dubious works on sexual aberrations. While it cannot be proved beyond doubt, it is difficult to imagine that such an inquisitive child as Donatien would not eventually have found a volume with the intriguing title (Amsterdam, 1701), in which the author apparently cites several cases in which flagellation was known to have incited sexual desire.2

A major research interest of the abbé was the history of his own family. He was especially interested in proving the validity of the local legend that Petrarch’s Laura had been a member, by marriage, of the de Sade family. He became convinced that she had been the daughter of one Audibert de Noves and Dame Ermessende, and that she became the wife of Hugues de Sade, on 16th January 1325. It has proved difficult to substantiate his claim, but the legend persists.

The count decided to employ a private tutor for his son. The man recommended to him was a 29-year-old cleric from the diocese of Geneva, the Abbé Jacques-François Amblet, originally from Annecy. He had not yet been ordained and so was free to take such a post. Donatien’s uncle sent back favourable reports of the tutor to the count, indicating that he seemed to be an intelligent and sensitive teacher. It seems likely that Amblet provided the boy with the warmth and friendship that was lacking in his relationships with his family.

The only other companionship the boy found was with the peasant children of the village and on the nearby farms, with only occasional contact with the children of merchants, lawyers and the like. In this way he acquired a liking for the Provençal dialect. He did however establish one friendship that was to last: with a boy called Gaspard François Xavier Gaufridy, who was the son of a businessman from Apt with responsibility for managing the count’s properties. They often went on long walks together and sometimes stayed with Donatien’s grandmother at Lacoste.

In the autumn of 1750, when Donatien was eleven years old, the count decided that it was time to bring the boy back to Paris and put him in a Jesuit school, the Collège Louis-le-Grand, in the rue Saint-Jacques. The Jesuit method of education at the time involved a combination of manifest kindness with a strict regime of punishment for any child who infringed the rules. Beating with the birch on a carefully specified extent of exposed body was the norm. Many biographers have attempted to trace de Sade’s fascination with whipping and anal eroticism at least in part to the corporal punishment he endured at school, but it must be stressed that such punishment was the norm in most schools and was often enforced in more extreme forms. In de Sade’s case there must have been latent tendencies that such treatment reinforced.

Although it is likely that Donatien stayed occasionally in the nearby Hôtel de Condé, he undoubtedly shared the same routine as the boarders for the most part. The daily routine of the school was not particularly strict when compared with other similar institutions, though it might appear so by modern standards. It involved getting up at 5.30 a.m., attending prayers at 6 a.m., and studying the Bible for an hour and a half before breakfast. The morning study period started at 8.15 a.m., with a break for mass at 10.30 a.m. There was then a period of private study until the lunch break, followed by a period of recreation. The afternoon study session started at 1.15p.m. and continued until 4.30 p.m., when there was another break. Then study continued from 5 p.m. until 7.15 p.m. After prayers at 8.45p.m., the boys had to go to bed at 9 p.m. Religious education took up only a small part of the day, being restricted mainly to the morning mass and prayers.

The Jesuits were more generous than many educational establishments when it came to the role of entertainment in the boys’ lives. As well as the conventional curriculum of Latin, Greek and rhetoric, they arranged for the boys to take part in theatrical activities and other kinds of performances. Classic French tragedies would be studied and then performed, and in the intervals there would be pastoral sequences with music and dancing. There are even records of the occasional performances of operas and oratorios and many more sober versions of biblical stories and the lives of the saints. In addition to using works by respected authors, the Jesuit fathers often wrote works themselves especially for such occasions. The performances were not just behind closed doors, but were usually attended by the pupils’ parents and other relatives, and also invited lords and ladies of the nobility. Extant engravings show that the stage sets were often elaborate, utilising complex machinery, with convincing special effects. Performances were held outdoors in amphitheatres in the summer and in a special indoor theatre in the winter. It cannot be said with certainty that de Sade took part in any of the performances, but undoubtedly he attended most that took place during his stay at the school. It has been estimated that,...