WEBVTT - Sadism in the Bastille 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:05.040 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:10.320 and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised a warning 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:15.080 before we begin. This week's episode contains mentions of graphic 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:19.079 sex and sexual violence. If that's not something you want 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:22.040 to listen to, or if you are a younger listener, 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:25.000 I would encourage you to skip this episode maybe and 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:34.680 come back next week. Revolution was brewing in Paris. There 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:38.239 were mobs in the city streets, and on July one, 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:43.640 seventeen eighty nine, if anyone in those mobs happened to 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:47.920 look up at the Bastille, they would have seen a man, 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:52.040 a prisoner, standing in the window of his cell on 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:57.240 the sixth floor, shouting down at them. Save the prisoners. 0:00:57.320 --> 0:01:01.520 The man yelled, their throats are being slack, they're being murdered. 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:06.760 You must help. They were dramatic words, words that the 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:12.800 prisoner was hoping would incite action. In actuality, the prison 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:17.080 was nearly empty. The man shouting down from his window 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:20.679 was the only prisoner remaining in his tower. 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:22.679 He was short and. 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:27.959 Wide, raggedly dressed, as you might expect. If the mob 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:31.760 on the street had squinted, they might have seen that 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:35.679 the prisoner was holding an object to his mouth like 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:40.760 a modern day megaphone, a metallic funnel. Even if they 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:44.800 had seen the object, the people on the street probably 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:47.960 would not have guessed that the funnel was a piece 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:52.160 of the prisoner's urinal though of course, use of the 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:57.160 urinal funnel to magnify his voice was entirely functional in 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:01.320 this case. The fact that this man one happened to 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:06.000 be holding an object associated with bodily waste up to 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:11.080 his mouth is uniquely appropriate given who that prisoner was. 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:13.320 His name was. 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:17.359 Dunisian Alphonse Francois, but he is better known as the 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:22.280 Marquis de Sade. He is among the most infamous writers 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:27.080 known to literary and cultural history, and among the most 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:33.200 controversial for good reason for his writing depicting gruesome sexual 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:38.120 tortures and violence that went as far as murder. His 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:44.280 grisly sexual imagination is the origin of the word sadism. 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:50.240 Though never quite as violent as his characters, his many 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:55.320 stints in prison weren't just for his ideas either. The 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:59.960 man poisoned and beat sex workers, and was credibly acute 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:04.880 used of kidnapping teenage girls. The Marquis de Sade has 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:10.399 been widely censored throughout history, and is also published as 0:03:10.440 --> 0:03:16.440 a Penguin classic. He has been reconsidered, redeemed and villainized 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:20.280 in the changing political winds of history by everyone from 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:24.679 Apolloniere to Simone de Beauvoir. He was a writer, above all, 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:30.000 known for his libertine works of sexual violence, less known 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:34.800 for his political and esthetic writings. And as the Marquis 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:38.040 de Sade stood in the window of the Bastille the 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:43.200 July that the French Revolution would reach its climax, shouting 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:47.400 into the metallic funnel, he was also one more thing, 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:56.280 perhaps surprisingly, a husband to a remarkably, even strangely devoted wife, 0:03:56.880 --> 0:03:59.720 a pious woman married to a man who had had 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:04.800 endless affairs, mostly with sex workers, but also with her 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:09.960 own sister. And yet she had stood by him throughout 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:16.599 his many violent indiscretions, his many imprisonments, his burnings in effigy. 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.880 As the Marquis de Sade stood there in the sixth 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:24.960 floor of his prison tower, screaming, he may have been 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:28.480 able to guess that soon he would be removed by 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:32.359 the armed guards. In fact, he was removed at one 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:36.240 the next morning. He may not have been able to 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:39.320 guess that he wouldn't be allowed to take with him 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:44.760 his library of six hundred books ranging from Homer to 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:48.880 Robinson Crusoe to Erotica, that his wife had sent him 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:49.720 by request. 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:51.560 He may have. 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:56.440 Had some sense that thirteen days later the Vestille would 0:04:56.440 --> 0:05:00.520 be stormed and the French Revolution would begin in o earnest, 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.640 But surely Sod could not have known that he was 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:08.600 on the immediate precipice of losing the two things in 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:12.239 the world that surely he believed he would never be without, 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:18.400 first the pages upon pages of his manuscripts, the scrawling 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:22.560 writing that he had kept secret and hidden during his imprisonment, 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:31.440 and second, at last, his once devoted wife. I'm Dana Schwartz, 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:43.520 and this is noble blood. All right, listeners, Right off 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:47.560 the bat, this is going to be an edgy one. 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:51.719 Before diving into the story of Sod, let's start by 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:55.720 acknowledging that sadism from the mind of the Marquis is 0:05:55.760 --> 0:06:00.279 not the now sex positive and consensual s that you 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:05.320 might know from the contemporary acronym BDSM. Some of it 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:10.320 starts there, but Sod's imagination goes far beyond even the 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:18.160 most transgressive sex positivity into disturbing depictions of extreme tortures 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:23.640 so obscene and violent that I can't won't even suggest 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:27.359 them on this podcast. Fifty Shades of Gray is like 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:32.919 a nursery rhyme by comparison. Sod himself told his lawyers 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:36.640 that his books were quote too immoral to send to 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:39.359 a man as pious and as decent as you. 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:41.159 I needed money. 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:45.560 My publisher asked me for something quite spicy, and I 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:50.760 made him a book capable of corrupting the devil listeners. 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:54.120 I can't give details of such works to someone as 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:58.080 pious and decent as you, nor would I want to. 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.080 What I can give is the story of the man 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:06.960 behind those works. With that said, let's get into it. 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:12.800 The Marquis de Sade was born on June two, seventeen forty, 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:16.000 in the house of his father's mistress. 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:17.280 Don't get me. 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:21.720 Wrong, the Marquis was a legitimate child of his married parents, 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:26.640 but Sad's father, Jean Baptiste, only married his wife in 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:30.680 the first place to get closer to another woman, the 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:36.400 Princess of Conde. Jean Baptiste loved the princess, but settled 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:41.280 for marrying her lady in waiting Marie. Like his eventual 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:45.640 son Jean Baptiste, had also been arrested for his sexual 0:07:45.720 --> 0:07:51.840 exploits with men, and Marie, unsurprisingly was rather absent from 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:56.440 the household and from her son's childhood. In a sad 0:07:56.680 --> 0:08:00.720 little incident from the Marquis de Sad's early life, neither 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:04.720 parent bothered to show up to his baptism, so a 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:08.840 pair of servants baptized him with the wrong name. He 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:14.600 was called Denisian Alphonse Francois, not Denisian al dunt Louise, 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:20.440 as his absentee parents had originally intended. At age five, 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:24.480 the young Sad moved in with his father's brother, who 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:29.240 scandalously lived with a mother and daughter with whom he 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:33.960 was both sleeping with. Sad had access to his uncle's 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:40.640 impressive library, which included Molieri, Hobbes, and books with titles 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:45.240 like The Bordello or The Everyman Debauched and The Good 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:50.160 and Bad Uses of Flagellation. In other words, this was 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:55.040 a child who grew up surrounded by promiscuous sex, for 0:08:55.160 --> 0:09:00.600 whom the taboo was commonplace. This was the era after 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:06.439 the licentious regency period in France, when so called libertinism 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:11.360 was common The word libertine comes from the Latin root liber, 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:16.439 meaning free. A libertine was a person living without moral 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:23.199 or religious restraint, particularly in the bedroom. When sod turned ten, 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:27.679 his father sent him to a Jesuit school that disciplined 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:32.559 boys by flogging them in front of their classmates. Accusations 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:36.719 of sodomy also ran rampant at the school, which was 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:41.120 a criminal act at the time. Usually, when covering a 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:45.400 subject on noble blood, it's unnecessary to the story to 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:50.479 either report or speculate on the specifics of the individual's 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:55.600 sexual proclivities. But in the Marquis de Sad's life, his 0:09:55.720 --> 0:10:00.920 own personal sexual activity is so inextricably linked to his 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:04.640 work and also to his life that I find it 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:08.960 actually does hold some relevance here. So whether or not 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:13.480 s'd first encountered sodomi at his Jesuit school, we know 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:16.839 that in both his personal life and in his writings, 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.720 for him, it was the only type of physical sex 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:25.120 that ever satisfied him, whether he was in prison or 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:28.760 in his marital bed, whether he was with men or 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:32.960 with women. Young S'ad went on to fight in the 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:37.280 Seven Years' War, where his sexual appetites were so well 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:43.400 known that his honorable discharge papers called him deranged. By 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:47.559 the time S'd was twenty two, his father was desperate to. 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:48.840 Get him married off. 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:54.960 Sad was therefore betrothed to a respectable young woman, renee 0:10:54.960 --> 0:11:00.440 Pelege Montcre. But six weeks before the wedding, Sada in 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:05.079 Provence was writing letters to a different woman he wanted 0:11:05.200 --> 0:11:09.640 her instead, of course, while saying how much he loved her, 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:14.760 he was also calling her an ungrateful wretch and blackmailing 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:21.960 her regarding the gonorrhea that he also had likely given her. So, surprise, surprise, 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:27.360 his relationship with that woman didn't work out. Nonetheless, Sod 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:30.280 refused to come back to Paris to marry the woman 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:32.960 that his father chose for him, and the wedding date 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:37.120 was approaching. Sod's father knew what a mess he was 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:40.439 creating for the young Rene Pelage Montrell and her mother. 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:45.040 I pity them, he wrote, for making such a bad purchase, 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:51.080 capable of making all kinds of trouble. Finally, one day 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:55.440 before the wedding, Sod arrived back in Paris carrying the 0:11:55.440 --> 0:12:01.040 then traditional wedding delicacy of artichokes. He married Peleget, who 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:06.840 stood four foot ten beside Sod's five foot two. This 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:10.240 was a time when five' four would be considered. Average 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:14.000 but even, so sd was. Short make of that what you, 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:19.320 will and, shockingly The marquis and his new marquise actually 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:24.440 seemed to really like each other like a. Lot sod 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:29.200 called her his beloved soul and dearest. Friend Renee pelget 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:34.920 came to at least, accept maybe even Enjoy sod's particular 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:38.760 predilections in the, bedroom which, were AS i alluded to, 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:44.319 before not the type that would risk. Pregnancy Biographer francine 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:48.440 De Plusie gray said That Renee pelaget's utter adoration for 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:54.040 her husband quote has a legendary mythical. Streak it is 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:58.640 akin to the devotion displayed by wives Of ogres In 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:03.080 european fairy. Tale of, course all of that love and 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:08.680 devotion wasn't enough to restrain The marquis De. Sade she 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:12.720 had married The marquis De, sade after, all and he was. 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:18.560 Untamable three weeks after the, Wedding Renee pelget was. Pregnant 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:22.960 five months after the, wedding her husband was in jail 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:29.240 for the first. Time it was a relatively tame first. 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:33.760 Charge he had forcibly demanded that a sex worker whip, 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:37.160 him and he threatened to whip her in, turn all 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:40.559 of which was actually kind of common practice at the 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:45.200 time for a married male. Aristocrat but under threat of, 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:49.920 violence he had also forced this woman to speak blasphemies Against. 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:54.120 God it was Actually s'd's wife and mother in law 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.680 who worked to get him out of. Prison he was 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:01.160 only there for three, weeks but even still he considered 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:06.280 his treatment massively. Unfair was a noble really going to 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:09.679 get in such trouble for how he treated such lowly. 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:15.880 Women In august seventeen sixty, Seven sod's first son was. 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:20.120 Born eight months after, That sod was in jail, again 0:14:20.640 --> 0:14:24.880 this time for seven months for the violent coerced whipping 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:29.720 of a woman Named Rose. Keller by seventeen seventy, Two 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:33.520 sod and his wife had two sons and a, daughter 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:38.120 and he was convicted for a third. Time he had 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:43.240 given sex workers a candy that contained a dangerously high 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:48.720 dose of an aphrodisiac Called spanish, fly which left at 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:54.440 least one girl. Hospitalized Spanish fly is not a. Euphemism 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:58.880 it is literally a bug a beatle actually rumored at 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:02.600 the time to increase arousal and even used as a 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:08.040 treatment for various, illnesses including STIs at the, time but 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:12.800 it was also incredibly, toxic sometimes even deadly in large. 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:18.560 Doses this, Time sod was sentenced to be burned and, 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:21.800 beheaded in a practice. 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:22.960 Common for nobles at the. 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:27.560 Time he was burned only in, effigy and the sentence 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:32.040 was considered. Complete in the, Meantime sod was off In 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:39.400 italy with a very particular. Mistress his devoted wife's, Sister Anne, 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:43.520 prosper was nine years younger than her, sister and she 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:49.000 was infatuated with The marquis De. Sad, Still sod's wife 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:54.440 stuck by. Him in seventeen seventy, Four sod had serious 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:59.880 kidnapping allegations levied against. Him Renee pelge covered for, him 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:04.560 knowing all along that he had in fact taken five 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:09.920 young teenage girls and one young boy servants into the 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:13.760 dungeon of his family chateau to have them act out 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:20.240 depraved scenes and. Orgies, finally in seventeen seventy, seven and 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.760 with the help of his once loving mother in, Law 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:28.720 sod was taken into. Custody it would be the thirteen 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:34.360 year long imprisonment that eventually led him to The. Bastille 0:16:35.160 --> 0:16:39.600 for a guy best known for his elaborate imaginations about 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:44.200 torture and, RESTRAINT sd did not take well to. Imprisonment 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:49.480 he was not initially held at The bastillo. Fortress he 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:53.840 was first at a fortress Called vincenne cell, eleven with 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:57.320 windows just barely high enough for him to see a 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:02.360 sliver of sky above the fortress. Walls the marquis wrote 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:09.600 to his wife constantly requesting incredibly specific items, herivens hemorrhoid, 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:14.920 creams face, powder, toothpicks. Cologne she worked to send, them 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:21.119 writing letters that professed ardent and passionate. Love sometimes he 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:25.960 returned her. Affections he wrote about his intense desire for, 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:32.280 her using euphemisms about his hem bow and. Arrow he 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:37.840 asked her to send him cylindrical objects shaped in, very 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:44.399 very particular. Dimensions but sometimes he turned on. Her he 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:48.000 blamed her, mother correctly as it turned, out for his, 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:53.639 imprisonment calling her a venomous, beast an infernal, monster and 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:58.159 other epithets THAT i cannot speak on this. Podcast he 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:01.680 sent his mother in law a letter written in his own. 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:06.760 Blood in the height of, irony he Accused Rene pelaget's 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:11.359 wife of wearing clothes that were too. Immodest as a, 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:15.919 result she went to live at a. Convent it Was 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:20.280 leap day of seventeen ninety four When sod was transferred 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:25.000 to The. Bastille, ironically his tower was called The tower Of. 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:26.800 Liberty he was. 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:31.080 In an octagonal cell that he plastered with flowers and 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:35.840 portraits of his, family almost like a dorm. Room by 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:38.480 the end of his stay in The tower Of, liberty 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.400 he was on the sixth, floor surrounded by six hundred 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:48.080 books in a. Bookcase his collection Included, Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:53.159 erotica and the Book Dangerous, liaisons written right around the 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:58.000 time Of sod's. Imprisonment he also had dozens of pens 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:02.679 and blank. Notebooks his wife had sent him all of 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:08.080 it because upon being, Imprisoned sod turned at, last in 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:12.200 earnest to the thing that he would become most famous for. 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:19.159 Writing sod turned his wife into his research. Assistant he 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:23.439 would ask her to find hotel, names, streets, managers and 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:28.280 surrounding settings in locations as distant As lisbon And. Madrid 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:33.480 yet his letters also derided the writing abilities of the 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:36.840 very woman who was sending him the books and research 0:19:36.960 --> 0:19:42.280 and strawberries and rosewater he requested to The. Bastille in one, 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.920 letter he, wrote, quote you don't seem to have bathed, 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:50.280 today for it is impossible to read anything drier than your. 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:52.480 Letter in, another. 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:56.680 He, Wrote you've sent me three pages of idiotic, ramblings 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:00.680 but it's in your manner to say stupidities to have 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:06.600 your reason go off. Track Renee peleget is generally considered. 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:11.520 Uneducated her writing is, misspelled and she certainly didn't share 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:17.119 her husband's famous linguistic. Dexterity but she engaged him in 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:21.719 complex questions of law and, ethics and she read and 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:28.760 critiqued his. Manuscripts she also probably accidentally misled him in 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.800 answer to some of his research. Questions the descriptions of 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:36.160 foreign nations in The marquis De sade's books are often, 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.840 wrong and that's the evidence that The marquis De sade's 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:47.119 prison writings were actually reliant on his long suffering. Wife of, 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:51.880 course sod was still in prison when he began writing 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:54.119 his first book in seventeen eighty. 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:55.639 Five he had to be. 0:20:55.840 --> 0:21:01.960 Secretive he wrote in frenzied three hours from seven to ten. 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:06.520 Pm the night darkening outside his. Window as his hand 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:11.159 trembled with, excitement he wrote on five inch pieces of 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:17.159 paper in tiny. Handwriting there are many tales about books 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:22.520 being written in ridiculously short periods of. Time, Supposedly Robert 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:27.040 Louis stevenson Wrote Jacqueline hyde in three, Days Arthur Conan 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:30.280 doyle wrote The First Sherlock Home story in three, weeks 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:35.080 and fasad it took thirty seven days to produce forty 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:39.040 nine feet of. Writing his book was about two hundred 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:44.119 and fifty thousand, words about one thousand, pages more than 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:46.760 double the size that would make a modern agent or 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:48.240 editor blanche if they. 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:48.679 Got it in the. 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:53.640 Mail that book Was the one hundred and Twenty days Of, 0:21:53.720 --> 0:22:00.159 sodom a catalog of every possible sexually violent. ACT i 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.119 cannot name them. Here you are welcome to look them up. 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:08.520 Yourself but if you are imagining, titillation don't be surprised 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:13.520 to find yourself. Repelled during all this, time the seeds 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:18.480 of The French revolution were about to. Bloom revolutionaries were 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:23.359 preparing their muskets and sharpening their. Swords The Liberty tower 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:28.000 was emptied of all but one, Prisoner its most depraved 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:32.040 and one day most famous The marquis De. Sade he 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:36.160 had been hearing the discontent of the revolutionaries down, below 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:40.679 and he was feeling bored and, annoyed denied his daily. 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:45.200 Walks so at noon On july, one seventeen eighty, nine 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:48.920 he took the funnel that linked his urinal to the, fortress, 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:52.520 mote put it to his, mouth stood at his window 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:56.479 and yelled down to the people. Below the prisoner's throats 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.800 are being, cut he screamed down into the. Crowd if 0:22:59.840 --> 0:23:03.479 The marquis De sad is, anything it's consistent and his 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:08.960 desire to provoke, people to say scandalous things and get a. Reaction, 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:14.520 unsurprisingly The bestille guards were not happy with. Him at 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:17.320 one am that, night they seized him in his cell 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:21.159 and took him basically, naked to the convent of The 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:25.520 brothers Of. Charity it, was In sod's, words an insane. 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:30.520 Asylum sod was desperate over the loss of his, writings 0:23:30.800 --> 0:23:33.800 which were still hidden in his cell in The. Bastille 0:23:34.359 --> 0:23:37.080 he gave the police commissioner the right to open his 0:23:37.119 --> 0:23:40.240 cell as long as his, Wife madame De, sad was. 0:23:40.280 --> 0:23:44.240 There sod, assumed of, course that his wife would take 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:48.399 his writings to, Safety but The marquise had been having 0:23:48.600 --> 0:23:49.360 a bit. 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:50.040 Of a change of. 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:55.280 Heart we really don't know why at long, last the, 0:23:55.280 --> 0:23:58.640 wife who had stuck With sod through all of his, 0:23:58.680 --> 0:24:03.240 troubles finally changed her mind about. Him what we know 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:08.040 is that On july, fourteenth thirteen days after her husband 0:24:08.200 --> 0:24:11.080 screamed from the window of his cell and was removed 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:16.480 to an insane, asylum The bastille was stormed and blood 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:20.000 ran through the streets Of. Paris we know that she 0:24:20.080 --> 0:24:23.399 was having mobility issues with her, legs and that she 0:24:23.520 --> 0:24:26.560 was forty eight years old and married to a man 0:24:26.880 --> 0:24:30.000 who had spent the better part of their lives together in, 0:24:30.160 --> 0:24:34.400 prisons and she was becoming more religious at the convent 0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:38.520 she lived. At and we know that On april, first 0:24:39.000 --> 0:24:44.680 seventeen Ninety sad was. Released he was, balding nearly, fifty 0:24:45.200 --> 0:24:50.040 wearing a ratty woolen. Coat we can only imagine the 0:24:50.119 --> 0:24:54.960 feeling of freedom after a thirteen year. Imprisonment he must 0:24:54.960 --> 0:24:59.400 have breathed in the fresh air, exhaled and he had 0:24:59.600 --> 0:25:02.879 only one the one thing on his, mind his. Wife 0:25:03.760 --> 0:25:06.639 maybe he wanted to do to her these sexual things 0:25:06.680 --> 0:25:09.560 that he had described in his letters over the. Years 0:25:10.119 --> 0:25:13.080 maybe he simply wanted to sit down together to a 0:25:13.119 --> 0:25:15.760 good meal at a table where they could stay for 0:25:15.840 --> 0:25:19.359 as long as they. Wanted man and wife reunited at. 0:25:19.480 --> 0:25:23.560 Last he went immediately to seek her out and found her. 0:25:23.600 --> 0:25:27.640 Convent he waited patiently For renee pelage to come meet. 0:25:27.680 --> 0:25:29.320 Him she never. 0:25:29.440 --> 0:25:33.320 Came your wife does not wish to see you ever, 0:25:33.480 --> 0:25:38.200 again a messenger Told. Sod she wants a legal. Separation 0:25:39.560 --> 0:25:43.440 sad never again saw the manuscript that he left. 0:25:43.200 --> 0:25:43.960 Behind in The. 0:25:44.000 --> 0:25:48.159 Bastille but the bigger blow was the loss of his 0:25:48.359 --> 0:25:52.920 long suffering. Wife AS i, said we don't know for 0:25:53.000 --> 0:25:57.880 sure Why Renee pelaget changed her mind at. Last it's 0:25:57.920 --> 0:26:01.639 not as though she had a shortage Of BUT i 0:26:01.720 --> 0:26:06.800 will add one. Suggestion it must have been much easier 0:26:06.840 --> 0:26:10.120 to have a husband like The marquis De. Sade when 0:26:10.160 --> 0:26:13.240 he was in. Prison you could visit him and then 0:26:13.560 --> 0:26:17.040 leave him safely behind, you where you knew you would 0:26:17.080 --> 0:26:20.480 find him the next. Time in, prison he could not 0:26:20.680 --> 0:26:25.440 be frequenting brothels and picking up yet another venereal disease 0:26:25.520 --> 0:26:28.960 to pass on to. You with him in, prison you 0:26:29.240 --> 0:26:32.639 had a modicum of control in your marriage to a 0:26:32.640 --> 0:26:36.960 man who had so abused and degraded you for rene, 0:26:36.960 --> 0:26:41.879 pelage her husband's imprisonment must have been a freedom that 0:26:42.040 --> 0:26:49.000 she could not give. UP a certain streak of karma 0:26:49.160 --> 0:26:51.840 would have Had sad live out the rest of his days. 0:26:51.920 --> 0:26:56.080 Alone but he quickly met a new, woman thirty three 0:26:56.160 --> 0:26:59.360 year Old Constant, quesnay who had a six year old 0:26:59.440 --> 0:27:06.400 son from previous. Marriage she became yet another inexplicably devoted. 0:27:06.560 --> 0:27:10.320 PARTNER i know a ton of amazing women who are 0:27:10.359 --> 0:27:16.359 still single, today and this guy finds endless. Devotes love 0:27:16.640 --> 0:27:20.800 is not. Fair it was After sad's stint in The 0:27:20.840 --> 0:27:24.600 bastille and after the loss of his, wife that he 0:27:24.680 --> 0:27:27.399 wrote the works for which he would become best known 0:27:27.560 --> 0:27:32.639 in his. Lifetime philosophy in The, Boudoir justine And juliette 0:27:33.200 --> 0:27:39.600 were sexually explicit and violent books that shocked society's. Sensibilities 0:27:40.320 --> 0:27:44.000 sad was free for only eleven years before he was 0:27:44.080 --> 0:27:47.920 arrested again at his publisher's office in eighteen oh, one 0:27:48.640 --> 0:27:52.640 this time for the crime of. Obscenity he spent another 0:27:52.960 --> 0:27:58.040 thirteen year stint in the insane, asylum still receiving conjugal 0:27:58.119 --> 0:28:01.800 visits from at least two whims women until he died 0:28:01.920 --> 0:28:07.919 On december twond eighteen, fourteen at age seventy. Four he 0:28:08.040 --> 0:28:12.679 willed everything to his second, Partner. Constance he stated in 0:28:12.760 --> 0:28:15.920 his will THAT i trust the memory of me shall 0:28:15.920 --> 0:28:19.600 fade out in the minds of all. Men of, course 0:28:19.800 --> 0:28:23.440 that's not what. Happened the legacy of The marquis De 0:28:23.560 --> 0:28:28.520 sade is extremely. Complicated at various points over the, centuries 0:28:28.840 --> 0:28:34.120 his reputation has been sanitized and resurrected as a figurehead against. 0:28:34.280 --> 0:28:38.160 Censorship at other, points his work has been castigated for 0:28:38.320 --> 0:28:43.239 its misogynistic violence and censored all over. Again he is 0:28:43.280 --> 0:28:47.560 one of those lightning rod historical figures who is endlessly 0:28:47.760 --> 0:28:51.800 used for the political ends of whichever movement wants to evoke. 0:28:51.880 --> 0:28:56.040 Him he has been revisited by everyone From flaubert To 0:28:56.200 --> 0:28:59.960 simone De. Beauvoir Mary shelley may have named her case 0:29:00.080 --> 0:29:04.760 Character justine And, frankenstein After sad's character of the same. 0:29:04.880 --> 0:29:09.160 Name The one hundred And Twenty days Of sodom was 0:29:09.240 --> 0:29:14.680 translated anew Into english as A penguin classic in twenty. 0:29:14.800 --> 0:29:20.760 Seventeen it is complicated to Consider sod in the contemporary. 0:29:20.840 --> 0:29:24.520 Moment do we defend his works on the basis of 0:29:24.600 --> 0:29:29.280 anti censorship and the virtue of sex positivity or at 0:29:29.360 --> 0:29:33.840 least open sexual. Expression or do we reject the works 0:29:33.920 --> 0:29:38.320 on the basis of opposition to misogyny and violence against, 0:29:38.320 --> 0:29:43.280 women opposition to the author the sexual coercion and, violence 0:29:43.320 --> 0:29:48.800 abduction and rape actually committed by the man. Himself and 0:29:49.080 --> 0:29:52.840 how do we even Read sad if we? Do were 0:29:52.880 --> 0:29:54.120 his writings. 0:29:53.680 --> 0:29:57.160 Even meant to be? Erotic they may. 0:29:56.960 --> 0:30:02.959 Have been at least heartly, comedy partly, satire partly political 0:30:03.000 --> 0:30:06.800 commentary amidst the beheadings and power upheavals of The French. 0:30:06.840 --> 0:30:12.520