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Marquis De Sade Biography & Facts

Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (French: [dɔnasjɛ̃ alfɔ̃z fʁɑ̃swa maʁki də sad]; 2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814) was a French writer, libertine, political activist and nobleman best known for his libertine novels and imprisonment for sex crimes, blasphemy and pornography. His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts. Some of these were published under his own name during his lifetime, but most appeared anonymously or posthumously. Born into a noble family dating from the 13th century, Sade served as an officer in the Seven Years' War before a series of sex scandals led to his detention in various prisons and insane asylums for most of his adult life. During his first extended imprisonment from 1777 to 1790, he wrote a series of novels and other works, some of which his wife smuggled out of prison. On his release during the French Revolution, he pursued a literary career and became politically active, first as a constitutional monarchist then as a radical republican. During the Reign of Terror he was imprisoned for moderatism and narrowly escaped the guillotine. He was re-arrested in 1801 for his pornographic novels and was eventually incarcerated in the Charenton insane asylum where he died in 1814. His major works include The 120 Days of Sodom, Justine, Juliette and Philosophy in the Bedroom which combine graphic descriptions of sex acts, rape, torture, murder, and child abuse with discourses on religion, politics, sexuality, and philosophy. The word sadism derives from his fictional characters who take pleasure in inflicting pain on others. There is debate over the extent to which Sade's behavior was criminal and sadistic. Peter Marshall states that Sade's "known behaviour (which includes only the beating of a housemaid and an orgy with several prostitutes) departs greatly from the clinical picture of active sadism." Andrea Dworkin, however, argues that the issue is whether one believes Sade or the women who accused him of sexual assault. Interest in his work increased in the 20th century, with various authors considering him a precursor to Nietzsche, Freud, surrealism, totalitarianism, and anarchism. Many prominent intellectuals including Angela Carter, Simone de Beauvoir, and Roland Barthes published studies of his work and numerous biographies have appeared. Cultural depictions of his life and work include the play Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss and the film Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Dworkin and Roger Shattuck have criticized the rehabilitation of Sade's reputation, arguing that it promotes violent pornography likely to cause harm to women, the young and "unformed minds". Life Early life, education and marriage (1740–1763) Sade was born on 2 June 1740, in the Hôtel de Condé, Paris, the only surviving child of Jean-Baptiste François Joseph, Count de Sade and Marie-Eléonore de Maillé de Carman. The Sade family was of the provincial nobility dating to the 13th century. Sade's mother was from a junior branch of the house of Bourbon-Condé and therefore Sade was related to the King of France by blood. Sade's father was a captain of dragoons who was entrusted with diplomatic missions to the Russian Empire, Britain and the Elector of Cologne. His mother was lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Condé and, for his first four years, Sade lived in the Hôtel de Condé. The infant Sade was spoilt, haughty, and prone to violent rages. In 1744, he was sent to live with his grandmother in Avignon, probably because he had fought with his playmate, Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé, who was four years his senior. The following year, Sade was placed in the care of his paternal uncle, the Abbé de Sade, a priest and libertine who lived in the château de Saumane in the Vaucluse region. The Abbé d'Amblet was appointed as Sade's tutor and the young marquis grew to respect him greatly. Meanwhile, the Count de Sade had lost favor with the king and had been recalled from his post in Germany. His career was now in ruins and his wife eventually left him to live in a Carmelite convent in Paris. In the autumn of 1750, ten-year-old Sade was sent to the Jesuit college Louis-le-Grand in Paris, where he was taught Latin, Greek and rhetoric, and also participated in the school's theatrical productions. Sade's father was now heavily in debt and could not afford to enroll his son as a residential student, so Sade probably lived in private accommodation with Amblet. Residential students were discouraged from mixing with external students and this might have isolated Sade from his aristocratic peers. Biographers are divided on whether Sade experienced caning and sodomy at school and whether this influenced his sexual development. Sade spent his summer holidays with Madame de Raimond, one of his father's former lovers, at the château de Longeville in the Champagne region. There he met Madame de Saint-Germain for whom Sade would hold a life-long affection. Both women became mother-figures for Sade.In 1754, Sade was sent to the Chevaux-légers military academy. After twenty months of training, on 14 December 1755, at age 15, Sade was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant in the King's Foot Guard. He soon went to battle at the onset of the Seven Years' War. After thirteen months as a sub-lieutenant, he was commissioned to the rank of cornet in the Brigade de Saint-André of the Comte de Provence's Carbine Regiment on 14 January 1757, and again promoted to the rank of captain in the Burgundian Cavalry on 21 April 1759. Despite this, Sade generally refused to ingratiate himself with his superiors, and "disdained making friends with his peers." He frequently infuriated his father with his gambling and womanizing. By 1761, Sade had gained a reputation as a good soldier but a gambler, spendthrift and libertine which damaged his prospects of further promotion. In February 1763, the Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years' War and Sade was discharged. Back in Paris, he lived a life of pleasure while his father, ill and in serious debt, contemplated retiring to a monastery to avoid "having to welcome my son, with whom I am unhappy." Sade's father was also negotiating with the Montreuil family for his son to marry their eldest daughter Renée-Pélagie. Although the Montreuils were of bourgeois origin, and had only been ennobled in the 17th century, they were rich and had influential contacts at court and in legal circles. The count considered his son a financial burden with a bad character. "As for me, what makes up my mind is that I will be rid of the boy, who has not one good quality and all the bad ones." Meanwhile, Sade had fallen in love with a nobleman's daughter named Laure de Lauris, but was abruptly rejected after two months of courtship. He was enraged, and threatened to blackmail Lauris by blaming his venereal disease on her to the next young man she courted. Sade, who proclaimed that he would only marry for love, resisted the arranged marriag.... Discover the Marquis De Sade popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Marquis De Sade books.