The Marquis de Sade: A Late Eulogy

“Either kill me or take me as I am, because I’ll be damned if I ever change.”

When I was 14 years old, I fell head-over-heels in love for the first time.  His name was Donatien. 

He’d been dead 186 years.

Life is so damned inconvenient.

Nevertheless, sometimes you’re given exactly what—or whom—you need, even when time and space get in the way.  At the formative age of 14, what I needed most was a mirror, something to reflect my own identity back at me, clearly and truly.  I’d never had such a mirror, which meant I wasn’t at all sure who or what I was.

Of course, other people seemed to have their own plans regarding who and what I should be.  They were more than happy to reflect their own projections back at me, to try and show me my image through the distorted mirrors of their own ambitions, needs, and fears.  My childhood was smothered in conformity.  I had parents who censored everything I saw, listened to, and read to the best of their thankfully inept abilities.  My childhood was in a word uninspired, tantamount to sitting in a waiting room. 

Somewhere in that vacant fog, I heard Enigma and their classic album MCMXC A.D, but I never pinned down the name of the artist until my teen years.  When I did, I became curious what Sandra was whispering about in Sadeness Pt 1, which of course led me to discover the Marquis de Sade.

It’s one of life’s mysteries that when you discover something essential to you, even before you get to know it, you sometimes feel it in your bones.  The moment I saw his name, I knew I needed to snap up anything and everything I could about him.

But who was Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade?  A dead revolutionary who didn’t even rate a footnote in my high school history textbook?  A violent criminal who wrote disgusting texts to justify his cruel acts?  An edgy libertine obsessed with sex, sex, sex?  It depended on who you asked. 

If any of these descriptions had actually summed him up, I think I’d have been bored silly.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Sade—the supposed depraved monster, the man who so many people assume was a moral vacuum—wrote this:

“Our reason alone should warn us that harm done our fellows can never bring happiness to us; and our heart, that contributing to their felicity is the greatest joy Nature has accorded us on earth; the entirety of human morals is contained in this one phrase: Render others as happy as one desires oneself to be, and never inflict more pain upon them than one would like to receive at their hands.”

What a beautiful sentiment from a man whose name literally has been equated to the infliction of that pain, whether in the playful sense (which I believe he’d have appreciated) or in the destructive sense (he'd have appreciated the irony).

This sentiment can be read in a short essay called Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man.  This piece is often overlooked of course, because there is little here to connect to our culture’s obsession of sex, sex, sex.  Dialogue Between a Priest and a Dying Man will do nothing to titillate bored couples in the bedroom.

At the time I read it, I was an atheist, which was not appreciated in my parents' household, nor had such a perspective gained the popular ground it seems to enjoy today.  My beliefs have changed in conjunction with the evidence of my experiences, but Sade's moral philosophy remains a core one in my life.  Reason and heart alone--these are what inform my beliefs and my choices, not the dictates of others.

Sade in the French Revolution

The Marquis de Sade was quite courageous to espouse atheism at a time when the church was incredibly powerful.  In fact, he was incredibly brave to champion many of the ideas that he did.  His commentary not only on sexuality, but also on religion, nature, the human race, and politics enraged Napoleon Bonaparte, resulting in his imprisonment without trial.  In fact, Sade spent more than a third of his life behind bars in a variety of prisons as well as an insane asylum, where he died at the age of 74.

The man was by no means perfect.  He certainly was a sexual predator, and some of his indiscretions were vile.  The majority however have been greatly exaggerated, both in his time and after it (today I doubt they’d rate more than a blip in a tabloid).  His first 13 years in prison were at the behest of an angry mother-in-law.  During that time he was accused of an accidental poisoning, but the charges were later declared groundless.  Yet somehow he is remembered more for the many false and embellished charges lobbed his way than anything good he did in his life.

When the French Revolution set him free, Sade, who was opposed to the death penalty, became a judge in a revolutionary court.  He sought repeatedly to prove the innocence of those who came before him, and even saved his hated mother-in-law who condemned him to prison in Vincennes from execution.  Charged with being too lenient, he was sentenced for execution himself.  Thanks only to a typo (and the subsequent end of the Terror), his life was spared. 

Who would think a man who went down in history as a bloodthirsty, well, sadist, would literally risk his neck to save his bitter enemies—enemies who condemned him to a fate of imprisonment which he likened to “this grave where they have buried me alive”? 

Society not only offered Sade vengeance, but actually demanded he kill his fellow human beings, that he give into his most base instincts.  He refused, on the basis of his heart and his reason.

Yet the Marquis de Sade is remembered for the sadistic acts he wrote about … not the merciful acts that nearly cost him his life.

On Writing

While I haven’t had a chance to read it, I have heard the Marquis de Sade wrote an essay called “Reflections On The Novel.”  Why did Sade choose to dwell on vice in his writing?  In his own words:

“Never shall I portray crime other than that clothed in the colors of hell.  I wish people to see crime laid bare, I want them to fear it and detest it, and I know no other way to achieve this end than to paint it in all its horror.  Woe to those who surround it with roses.  Their views are far less pure, and I shall never emulate them.”

In this essay he apparently also advised never to write for money—at least not as a priority.

I’ve been thinking about this lately, because money, fame, praise, and all forms of external feedback are why the vast majority of writers write.  They write to a formula, they write to please “beta readers,” they write not to honour the highest truth in their hearts, but to please the fickle mob.  This … they call art.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t have anything against the person who honestly derives their greatest joy and meaning from pleasing others.  I don’t have anything against someone who writes primarily for a financial payoff and calls it what it is—content.  I also have nothing against members of television writing teams who miraculously manage to inject something genuine into a collaborative process under the heel of an ongoing profit motive.

I do have a problem with individuals who say they are creating magnificent, honest works from their hearts when they are actually pandering to the whims of the mob.  I realize the grain of inspiration at the center of their works sometimes is derived from their hearts, but they’ve allowed public opinions, trends, publishing houses and writing advice columns to make revisions.  They have twisted their works accordingly.  If this represents their hearts as they claim, their hearts too have been twisted out of true, and belong to the highest bidders.  

True will comes from the individual, not the masses.  True art reflects true will.

They’ll tell you it’s for the sake of making writing better, that their willingness to butcher their own work is proof of their seriousness.  But achieving greatness in writing doesn’t entail handing one’s words to others to vivisect.  It means doing that hard work yourself, like a painter or sculptor or any other type of artist, and doing the thousands of revisions your soul demands with the passion they deserve.  Those revisions should be driven not by the whims of the masses, but by your heart and reason. 

Writing is about becoming a surgeon, not letting others be your butchers.

I bring this up because I write novels, and I am so lucky not to be caught up in this desperate race to please others.  I am part of a tiny percentage of writers who treats their work as a sacred trust, a ritual, a link to the divine.  It is an offering I give to the gods of my experience that grant me an inspired life and do so directly.     

And every day, I hear that I am wrong.  It is everywhere in blogs and advice columns all over the web.  "Don't listen to to your heart or reason--listen to us.  We know what you want to say better than you do."

I don’t mind being part of a tiny minority, and I can even accept that my work will never be my living.  But I do mind that the other 99%  pretend nobility and sacrifice—or count someone like me as a failure among their ranks.  I’m not a member of their ranks.  The only commonality is that I work in the medium of words, as they do.

I got to wondering, “Why is that?  What set me free?  How did I learn to place value on the truth in my heart, and not on the expectations of others?”

And then I realized.  When I was 14, I had a mentor.  From across the barriers of time and death, Sade taught me what true integrity looks like:

“Either kill me or take me as I am, because I’ll be damned if I ever change.”

The priests of Sade’s fundamentalist time were gatekeepers.  They stood between the masses and salvation, telling them what to believe, how to act, what was true, and what was divine.  If they did not get in line, Hell awaited them.

Of course, the priests told them this to keep them in their place, so that they could continue to hold power over their lives.  Their mission was always to keep the disenfranchised from seeking Heaven on earth, or trying to create it themselves.  When we find salvation on our own, we no longer need priests.  We are empowered, independent, free.  We lead individual lives, lives that cannot so easily be reined in and controlled.

The gatekeepers of our time are everywhere.  The parents who deny us love unless we subscribe to their traditions, the politicians and CEOs that deny us bread unless we join their corporate machines.  The fundamentalist priests—they are still here too, telling us that their god speaks to us through their books and their sermons.  

But perhaps the most insidious gatekeepers are the nameless masses—ordinary people who have not had the courage to see that we derive knowledge from our experiences and meaning from our hearts. Having sold their integrity to others, they now seek to drag the rest down, because when they see integrity, it reminds them of just how much painful work they'd have to do to ever set themselves free.

In the world of writing, those gatekeepers are the publishing houses and the beta readers and the public who believe that great art must be subject to their discretion—that it comes from what others believe we should create, and not what we do.  " "Don't listen to to your heart or reason--listen to us.  We've let others butcher our souls.  Now let us butcher yours."

They do this for the same reason as the priests of old: power--or perceived power.  In truth, it is nothing but weakness. To quote another role model of mine, William Blake, "Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or Reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.  And being restrain'd, it by degrees becomes passive, till it is only the shadow of desire."

That’s why I wanted to take this time to reflect on a man who changed my life.  Though he never met me, Sade held a mirror in front of me.  In him, I recognized the values in my own heart.  He showed me that actions matter more than words, that blood spilled or spared never lies, and that integrity is the cornerstone for any moral system worth devising.  When the Revolution swept over France and a whole country went mad, he chose the hard path—the path of kindness. 

He made his choices not because some priest, gatekeeper or imaginary god told him to, and not because the masses respected, liked, legitimized, or appreciated him.  As Sade said,

“All human morality is contained in these words: make others as happy as you yourself would be, and never serve them more ill than you would yourself be served. These, my dear fellow, are the only principles which we should follow. There is no need of religion or God to appreciate and act upon them: the sole requirement is a good heart.”

While the world remembers either a monster or a sex-obsessed libertine with no thought save for himself, I remember a man who spared his bitter enemies from the execution block at the risk of his life, a man who once went to prison not for assaulting a prostitute, but simply for practicing his rhetoric on her paid time, a man whose dry humour was utterly delightful.  Sex-obsessed he was, but the love of his life was his platonic best friend.  And at 74, he took the time to teach the teenage laundry maid he was screwing how to read and write.  What an utterly idiosyncratic individual.

In many ways, Sade never entirely grew up; in a childish, petulant manner, he threw a tantrum anytime he didn’t get his way.  So many of his mistakes weren’t the result of cruel, cold-blooded determination, as so many would think, but most often of a blithe, lonely innocence that sometimes didn’t realize the destruction it was wreaking until it was too late. 

Why do so many remember him differently?  Part of it is probably that history is written by the victors—and de Sade is hardly someone we’d term a victor in the traditional sense.  Part of it was the myth he himself created.  But perhaps his own words explain it best: “Truth titillates the imagination far less than fiction.”

Was the Marquis de Sade in truth a hero?  I don’t know what it takes to call someone a hero to others, and he certainly wasn’t a hero to every person he met.  But he was a hero to me.  He taught me if you really believe in something, it is worth going to extremes to speak the truth and live a life through action that honours it as best you can.  He never let others tell him how to write, what to believe, what was right or wrong, or how to live.  He never let others stand in the place of his heart or reason as false gods.  In a way, he was there for me when no one else was.  I try to live a life he would be proud of.

In discovering Sade, I discovered myself.  Fifteen years later, I don’t write this eulogy to say goodbye, but to say “hello again.”  I also do it to remind you who are reading this that other people are not your gods.  They have no right to tell you what to believe or how to act or to restrain your true desires.  Have the courage to be yourself.  Don't let anyone censor your soul.  Stand up for yourself and live a life of integrity, like Sade.

Sources:

http://www.cofc.edu/desade/papers/arce01.doc

http://neilschaeffer.com/sade/