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At Home with the Marquis De Sade: A Life

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Although few of us would choose the Marquis de Sade as a friend, there can be no doubt that he was one of history's most fascinating and colorful characters. This book eschews sensationalism and gives us a fascinating glimpse of the private world of the man who prompted psychiatrist, Kraft-Ebbing, in 1882, to coin the term "sadism." Interestingly, sadism played but a small part in the life of de Sade; he was as much a masochist as anything else.

de Sade was born in Paris in 1740; his young mother was governess and lady-in-waiting to Prince Condé. At the age of four, de Sade threw one too many temper tantrums and was sent to the south of France, to his doting grandmother in Avignon. From Avignon, he was sent to various Jesuit schools where, at the time, flogging and sodomy were common practice. This, the author convincingly argues, provided the needed catalyst for the emergence of de Sade's true personality.

de Sade married his only wife at an early age, the plain and ungraceful Pélagie Montreuil, daughter of the intelligent and ambitious Madame Montreuil. The Montreuil's had money but no familial link to the aristocracy. For a time Madame Montreuil excused the sexual forays of her new son-in-law, but eventually her forgiveness become too much for him to ask; she turned against de Sade with a bitterness, becoming not only his mother-in-law, but his lifelong nemesis as well.

His marriage to Pélagie, however was a surprisingly good one. de Sade apparently awakened long-repressed passions in the young girl that remained until their separation many years later when she rejected him with much fervor.

Eschewing Louis XV's court in Paris and in Versailles, de Sade preferred living on his estates in Provence, most particularly in the medieval hill village of Lacoste. In Lacoste, the marquis took full advantage of his feudal rights and looked upon the villagers as nothing more than serfs. While Madame Montreuil raised his three children in Paris, de Sade and Pélogie lived the high life in the chateau at Lacoste. de Sade, himself, made frequent trips to the Provençal capital of Marseilles where he maintained rented houses for prostitutes. His prostitutes, however, didn't especially care for the idea (or the actuality) of being whipped. They also found de Sade's sodomy and coprophilia perversions less than enticing. Depositions were soon filed and the frustrated pre-Republic parliament system, for whom the king was beyond reach, went after de Sade with fervor.

As a result of his depravity, de Sade found himself in and out of prison for the rest of his life. Perhaps it was megalomania, perhaps it was simply uncontrollable depravity, but each time de Sade was released from prison, he immediately set off and got into trouble once again. In Marseilles, he fed Spanish fly covered with anise to two prostitutes and they became so ill they accused the marquis of attempted poisoning. Back he went to prison.

Upon being released, he found, to his great delight, that Pélogie had hired an entire retune of beautiful young girls to live in the chateau at Lacoste and do the marquis' bidding. There followed six weeks of debauchery of the highest (or lowest) order, which only ended when the parents of the girls filed charges. This particular incident netted de Sade a thirteen-year prison term. Released after the fall of the Bastille, de Sade went on to hold a minor position in the National Assembly until Robespierre cast him unceremoniously into prison once again. Prison, however, wasn't all bad for de Sade, for it was there that he composed Justine and Juliette and many other now famous works. After the fall of Robespierre, de Sade was once again free, only to find himself committed (by Madame Montreuil) to the mental asylum at Charendon where he spent the remainder of his days, often conducting lavish theatrical productions that involved the other inmates.

This book is aptly named, for it brings de Sade to life through everyday details, many of them based on his letters to Pélogie. Although we know the marquis grew tremendously fat while incarcerated, most of us never knew why. When we read, in this book, his letters to Pélogie demanding goodies such as truffles, chocolates, jams, cakes "glazed on both sides" and other sweet treats, we not only understand de Sade's corpulence, we also feel a little sympathy for Pélogie, for although she tried to fulfill the marquis' demands, it wasn't an easy job; de Sade had bankrupted them, forcing Pélogie to live out her life in a convent.

Although this book is set against a rich historical background (the fall of Napoleon, the rise and fall of Robespierre), it is a detailed, "everyday" history that is portrayed as opposed to history on an epic scale. At Home With the Marquis de Sade is a well-researched, well-written and fascinating look at the everyday minutiae of a man who, although his name has become almost a household word, has heretofore been far too little understood.

With the release of the movie Quills starring Jeremy Irons, renewed interest in the infamous writer Marquis de Sade abounds. This tantalizing biography by Francine du Plessix Gray deftly guides us through a most twisted mind and details the idyllic estate in Provence where he created some of his most shocking work.

The Marquis de Sade, who was born in 1740 and died in 1814, was a passionate gourmet, and especially loved baked apples and vanilla custards for dessert. He also fancied Provençal delicacies such as quail stuffed with grape leaves, very fresh cream of chard soups and chocolate cake. "I wish for a chocolate cake so dense," he once wrote his wife from one of his stints in jail, "that it is black, like the devil's a** is blackened by smoke."

Sade, one of the few men in history whose names have spawned adjectives, was equally particular about matters of personal hygiene and liked to bathe every day -- a habit totally foreign to his 18th century contemporaries, who might have bathed twice a month at the most. He loved dogs, he loved children as long as they abided by his orders and he delighted in family games such as blind man's buff and musical chairs.

But above all other material things, above all his many whimsies and caprices, the Marquis de Sade cherished a certain place in his native Provence, a little château in a small village called La Coste, which he had inherited from his father's family and on which he looked as his only home. La Coste was to Sade what Walden was to Henry David Thoreau, what Combray was to Marcel Proust, what Amherst was to Emily Dickinson -- the matrix of all inspiration and perhaps also of all delusions, the quintessential Site-as-Muse.

There's a potential danger in this kind of domestic approach to the Marquis de Sade. Such domestic ironies, such pleasant trivia of Sade's life as his love of baked apples might defang him, and turn this borderline psychopath and woman-batterer into a pleasant fellow. It should not be forgotten that one of the most terrifying features of Sade's persona, as with many batterers of women, is the vast range of his behavior -- his occasional capacity for great tenderness and integrity, his considerably more frequent manipulativeness and brazen authoritarianism. Sade was a power freak if there ever was one.

With detailed imagery, blueprints if you will, of La Coste; secret apartments, torturous rooms of enema bags, photo galleries rampant with pornography, Gray is an architect of an intriguing, well researched biography of a most disturbed, yet scintillating man.

It often seems difficult for anyone reading a biography of the Marquis de Sade to approach the task objectively for the simple reason that his life and writings precede him in a way unlike most writers and historical figures. Thus, the noun precedes him--"sadist"-and the adjective-"sadistic"-our language itself fixing the man's transgressions before the fact of his biography, making the biography appear superfluous in light of the enormity of the man's crimes. But there was, indeed, a real human being behind the noun and the adjective--Donatien Alphonse Francois, Marquis de Sade--and Francine du Plessix Gray's "At Home With the Marquis de Sade" provides an insightful, sympathetic, well written picture of that human being in all his complexity.

Gray's biography concentrates largely on the relationship de Sade had with two women-his first wife, Renee-Pelagie de Sade, and his indomitable mother-in-law, Madame de Montreuil. De Sade's wife remained a constant companion to the erstwhile Marquis for more than a quarter century, suffering his sexual excesses (including dalliances with her younger sister, Anne-Prospere), the ensuing scandals and, ultimately, the many years of imprisonment. His mother-in-law, a social climbing women of fierce and irrepressible will who at first found the Marquis charming, ultimately became his worst oppressor, driven like the Eumenides to avenge de Sade's seduction of her virginal younger daughter, Anne-Prospere. She was, in Gray's characterization, a woman who exemplified "primitive female fury, a rage that is unquestioning in its self-righteousness." And it was Madame de Montreuil who unstintingly worked to keep the Marquis imprisoned for over thirteen years, freedom coming only with the fall of the Bastille in 1789, when the Marquis was forty-nine years old.

Gray deftly uses correspondence and other contemporary historical documents to illuminate de Sade's life, including his prominent involvement as "Citizen Louis Sade" in the Revolutionary government of France, his role in saving his hated mother-in-law from the guillotine in 1793, and his subsequent incarceration in the Charenton asylum from 1799 until his death in 1814, where he carried on as an author and director of numerous theatrical productions staged by the inmates of the asylum and by professional actors. Gray also puts de Sade's early life and sexual excesses in context, showing how his actions, while transgressive and freely chosen, were also the product of a society and an upbringing which allowed libertinism to flourish among the pre-Revolutionary French nobility and clergy. Finally, Gray provides illuminating, albeit brief, discussions of de Sade's literary works, putting his writings in historical context and showing that the excesses of the man's life did not attain the excesses of his imagination.

"At Home With the Marquis de Sade" is, in short, a carefully researched, lucidly written life of the historical figure who has come to symbolize sexual transgression, a biography that eludes the imprisonment of culturally fixed meanings to get at the real life behind the "Sadist".

It often seems difficult for anyone reading a biography of the Marquis de Sade to approach the task objectively for the simple reason that his life and writings precede him in a way unlike most writers and historical figures. Thus, the noun precedes him--"sadist"-and the adjective-"sadistic"-our language itself fixing the man's transgressions before the fact of his biography, making the biography appear superfluous in light of the enormity of the man's crimes. But there was, indeed, a real human being behind the noun and the adjective--Donatien Alphonse Francois, Marquis de Sade--and Francine du Plessix Gray's "At Home With the Marquis de Sade" provides an insightful, sympathetic, well written picture of that human being in all his complexity.

Gray's biography concentrates largely on the relationship de Sade had with two women-his first wife, Renee-Pelagie de Sade, and his indomitable mother-in-law, Madame de Montreuil. De Sade's wife remained a constant companion to the erstwhile Marquis for more than a quarter century, suffering his sexual excesses (including dalliances with her younger sister, Anne-Prospere), the ensuing scandals and, ultimately, the many years of imprisonment. His mother-in-law, a social climbing women of fierce and irrepressible will who at first found the Marquis charming, ultimately became his worst oppressor, driven like the Eumenides to avenge de Sade's seduction of her virginal younger daughter, Anne-Prospere. She was, in Gray's characterization, a woman who exemplified "primitive female fury, a rage that is unquestioning in its self-righteousness." And it was Madame de Montreuil who unstintingly worked to keep the Marquis imprisoned for over thirteen years, freedom coming only with the fall of the Bastille in 1789, when the Marquis was forty-nine years old.

Gray deftly uses correspondence and other contemporary historical documents to illuminate de Sade's life, including his prominent involvement as "Citizen Louis Sade" in the Revolutionary government of France, his role in saving his hated mother-in-law from the guillotine in 1793, and his subsequent incarceration in the Charenton asylum from 1799 until his death in 1814, where he carried on as an author and director of numerous theatrical productions staged by the inmates of the asylum and by professional actors. Gray also puts de Sade's early life and sexual excesses in context, showing how his actions, while transgressive and freely chosen, were also the product of a society and an upbringing which allowed libertinism to flourish among the pre-Revolutionary French nobility and clergy. Finally, Gray provides illuminating, albeit brief, discussions of de Sade's literary works, putting his writings in historical context and showing that the excesses of the man's life did not attain the excesses of his imagination.

"At Home With the Marquis de Sade" is, in short, a carefully researched, lucidly written life of the historical figure who has come to symbolize sexual transgression, a biography that eludes the imprisonment of culturally fixed meanings to get at the real life behind the "Sadist".

It's all too easy to recount legendary bad behavior - it is quite another thing to account for it and demonstrate how the imprint of a literary figure from long ago and far away has immediate relevance. Your reviewer from Lake Arrowhead doesn't appreciate the author's finesse in using only period sources to present a refreshing point of view on the Marquis. What's more, he doesn't see the new, far scarier, monster uncovered in this sad tale - the Mother-in-Law. It is true that if you are seeking thrills you should probably stick to the Marquis' writings or modern pornography. Nevertheless, if you are interested in the man himself, the period, the influences that shaped his oeuvre, and a superb human story, go get this book!

When I first started reading this, it seemed more about the women (his mother and wife) than the Marquis. So, I read further to prove myself wrong.....not very successful. I had read another reveiw about this book that said the author sounded like a mother chastising her son; that sounded pretty close to what I read from the book. When it comes to the Marquis de Sade, I beleive that the author should have a presence, but not a(n) seemingly overbearing/opinionated one like in this book. I didnt finish it; after a few pages I realized this was not what I was looking for: something about the Marquise de Sade, not the women in his life.
If you want some type of psychoanalysis-biography of de Sade( which I want) this isn't it. It seems well researched, just not about the right subject.

The art of biography is a tricky one indeed. The biographer must make the subject come alive, while keeping him/herself far in the background. Unfortunately for 'At Home With the Marquis De Sade,' one often learns more about Francine Du Plessix Gray and her prejudices than about the Mad Marquis. To be fair though, De Sade is dangerous territory for the biographer. So much has been heaped around the myth that the truth about the man may never come to light.

Gray does admirable work with her sources though. Page after page, she unindates you with quotes from Sade's voluminous correspondence. The Alphonse-Donatien de Sade that emerges from these letters is one of a spoiled and self-centered child ignored by his profligate father and cold, unloving mother. Gray traces Sade's development into an imperious adolescent whose arrested childhood spurs him to find love and acceptance at the expense of others. The young nobleman inflicts painful whippings and other brutalities on a variety of servant girls and prostitutes. Sade's defense of his behavior underlies the inhumanity of the Ancien Regime. They were 'whores' and deserved no better. Gray brilliantly shows the connection between Sade's aristocratic snobbery and his casual disdain for those below him on the social ladder. With the arrival of the Revolution, the Terror and eventually, Napoleon, Sade finds himself playing the political chameleon in a continous effort to escape the blade and free himself from prison.

Thoroughout the book, Gray looks upon her subject rather bemusedly. Horrified at his misogyny and cruelty, she appears skeptical, if not downright cynical towards his occasional outbursts of kindness. In Gray's opinion, Sade was an overgrown child who never grew up to learn the fundamental lesson of 'civilization,' that of controlling our individual passions for the good of the whole. This Freudian-inspired thesis underscores the whole work, where Gray acts like the condescending aunt to a naughty nephew.

The strongest link in the book is Gray's examination of the women in Sade's life, foremost, his docile, all-forgiving wife, Pélagie, and his conformist, propriety-mongering drill sergeant of a mother-in-law, Madame de Montreuil. We get a sense of Sade's relationship with women, caught between the Scylla of Pélagie's adoring meekness and the Charybdis of the Madame's censuring strictness. Sade navigated his whole life between these two extremes, worshipping the one, loathing the other. But to view women as equal, suffering human beings just like himself was impossible. Sade needed both the angel and the harpy.

Where Gray's psychoanalysis proves weakest is with the discussion of Sade's complex and confused sexuality. She never really addresses the question of where his desire fit in. Homosexual? Bisexual? Heterosexual? Pansexual? Sade seemed to include all at once. Whilst such terms were the product of the 19th century, Gray remains silent on where to put the Marquis. Instead, she, like her Enlightenment predecessors, focuses on the sexual acts of Sade's varied repetoire: masturbation, flagellation and of course, 'sodomy,' which she incorrectly attributes to anal sex alone. Even more importantly, she never explores the reason for his being burned in effigy after his bisexual orgy in Marseilles which set him down the road of infamy. He was sentenced to death for having sex with a man, his valet, not for the horrible cruelties inflicted upon two young prostitues. The Ancien Regime tolerated the abuse of women while condemning the 'crime' of homosexuality. And herein lies a key to further examining the Marquis. Were his shocking exploits and even more outlandish writings the outlet of sexual energies he could only express at the pain of death? Gray includes nothing about this paranoid homophobia of Ancien Regime France and of European history as a whole. Instead, she rests her case on the very questionable thesis that civilization is the only bulwark against barbarity. Two devilish European wars of destruction might prove otherwise. Perhaps civilization's 'necessary suppression' breeds the seeds of barbarity itself.

Such questions and many more are left to the reader's musings, while the troubled Marquis never really leaves the page. Gray imprisons him once more in a quagmire of 'original' materials, while the man himself silently rattles his chains at us. 'At Home With the Marquis De Sade' journeys down the hitherto unexplored side-streets of the 'divine' marquis' existence, but ultimately fails to bring him to life. For that, I guess we'll have to wait.

I very much enjoyed this book from the standpoint of historical inquiry. It is so difficult in this day and age to get "all the facts" and so often when one does read a story/biography with all the holes filled in one comes to find out later that there was significant embellishment on the part of the author to give the reader a full story.

Thank God we have a writer that sticks to the facts and chooses not to fill in the blanks with pure tripe - instead, when a supposition is made, it is defined as such and the reader is left to decide to agree with or discount the extrapolation.

I think that today's average, even avid, book reader often times misjudges a really good book by demanding more from it than it can possibly provide - the "full" story, the "every" detail, the "complete" and "unabridged" biography. Anyone familiar with historical study knows that if a book presents this kind of analysis, that it would better fall under "historically based romance or literature" than "historical inquiry".

I was very pleased with the way the author worked through the first hand letters written back and forth between de Sade, his mother-in-law and his wife and how the story unfolded without adding unnecessary drivel about what may or may not have gone through their minds upon reading them. Actions speak much louder than words in this book, based solely on historical records and written correspondence. It's a provocative piece of the puzzle of de Sade's life, which is all it promises to be, and which in my opinion it fulfills grandly.

And for those of us concerned with the sexual dysfunction of the mid to late 1700's compared to our time and place, I would suggest (re-)reading the section referring to de Sade's uncle and the religious "payments" required for redemption after certain (listed) sins were committed. Made me laugh out loud!

Strangely, though it is from him that the word sadism is derived, I found it no torment to read this delightful book. There are many myths around the Marquis de Sade, as he has always been more talked about then read. This biography shows us a gentler side of the man by focusing upon his relationships with the women in his life. Though he could be cruel like any of us, his "crimes" pail in comparison to those of many of his contemporaries. What I find interesting about the Divine Marquis is not so much the writings as the energy of the man himself. Sade was almost incapable of restraint, except when it came to saving his own skin. When locked away behind prison walls and unable to gratify his desires in the flesh, he turned to the pen to pour those energies onto paper. Called "the freest spirit who ever lived" by Apollinaire, Ms. Gray shows us the great lesson of such freedom, the necessity of compromise in civilized life. In his last years, in a letter to an old friend he writes: "I am not happy, but I am well." How many of us, thwarted in our dreams and desires, might say the same?

Francine Gray has humanized Sade for us. The full description of his activities prior to his arrest,as given by Gray, confirms what Sade says of himself,"I am a libertine: I have conceived everything one can conceive in that genre, but I've surely not done all I've imagined and surely will never do it.." Sade was a visionery of cruel and convoluted sex. As regards the use of whips and Cat-'o'-nine tails and sodomy, he was only following the style of his contemporary aristocrats, a way of life which treated prostitites and the lower orders as captive booty, like the nubile black slave girls were treated in the South here till the Civil war.That way of life amongst the French Aristocracy .seems to have continued at least till the twenties of the last century- see Proust's portrayal of the proclivities of Baron Charlus in the last volume of his 'Remembrance of Things Past' ['In Search of last Time' in the recent Penguin Edition]. The description of the French Revolution by Madame Sade is an insider's account of the cataclysm. The black tid-bits about the leaders of the French Revolution, - Mirabeau [incest with his sister and writing erotica] and Danton, ['who read Justine to masturbate']are quite revealing and also raise the question how it is that lechers and the morally defecient become leaders of rabble or are chosen as such by the rabble.Francine could have analysed what exactly was the attraction Sade had for women of all types- the intellectual Milli Rousset, the beautiful Anne Launay,his sister-in-law, the uneducated Constance and others.The book is, on the whole, a great read. B.T.Sampath