Marquis de Sade

Marquis de Sade lived a scandalous libertine life, and repeatedly indulged in severe sexual offences. He was also charged with blasphemy, a serious offense at that time, and was imprisoned several times for committing sexual brutalities against women.

In 1763, he expressed his wish to marry a rich magistrate's daughter, but her father rejected the proposal, and instead arranged his marriage with his elder daughter, Renée-Pélagie de Montreuil. The couple had two sons and a daughter.

After several imprisonments, he was exiled to his castle in Lacoste in 1768. In 1772, after an incident of non-lethal incapacitating of women with aphrodisiac Spanish fly and sodomizing a man, Sade was sentenced to death. He fled to Italy, taking his wife's sister with him. He was caught and imprisoned, but escaped after four months.

Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was born on June 2, 1740, in Paris. His father, Jean Baptiste François Joseph was a diplomat in the court of Louis XV, and his mother, Marie Eléonore de Maillé de Carman, was a cousin and lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Condé. When he was a child, his father abandoned his mother, who took refuge in a convent.

He was his parents' only child, and was educated by his uncle. From childhood, he was rebellious and had a bad temper.

He attended Lycée Louis-le-Grand, a Jesuit college, in Paris for four years. There Abbé Jacques-François Amblet, a priest, tutored him. At school he received "severe corporal punishments," including flogging for repeated misdeeds.

When he was 14, he attended an elite military academy, and at 15, he was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant. He eventually became Colonel of a Dragoon regiment and fought in the Seven Years' War.

Marquis de Sade often indulged in sexual brutalities against women, which inspired his pornographic writings. He was once forced to flee to Italy due to his sexual offences, and during that time he wrote ‘Voyage d'Italie’.

He was also often imprisoned for his sexual misconduct. While in prison, he started writing erotic works. He wrote a dialogue ‘Dialogue entre un prêtre et un moribond’ (Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man) in 1782, while he was at Château de Vincennes. It was first published in 1926.

He wrote ‘Aline et Valcour; ou, Le Roman Philosophique’ when he was incarcerated in Bastille in the 1780s. The novel contrasts a brutal African kingdom with a South Pacific island paradise. It was published in 1795, his first book to be published under his true name.

In 1785, he wrote his infamous novel ‘Les 120 Journées de Sodome’ (The 120 Days of Sodom). Described as pornographic and erotic, it told the story of four wealthy male libertines who decide to experience sexual gratification in orgies. It was first published in 1904.

In 1790, during the French Revolution, he published several of his books anonymously. After The French Revolution in 1799, he supported the Republic, and served in several official positions. He was elected to the National Convention, and was a member of the Piques section, known for its radical views. He supported implementation of direct vote.

'La philosophie dans le boudoir’ (Philosophy in the Boudoir) is a 1795 book by Sade written in the form of a dramatic dialogue. Although initially it was seen as a work of pornography, the book was later considered to be a socio-political drama. In a bedroom, the two lead characters discuss that the only moral system that can reinforce French political revolution is libertinism, and if France fails to adopt the libertine philosophy, it will return to be a monarchic state.