Marquis de SADE - “Non-citizen, I am not and will never be an emigrant. »

Donatien Alphonse François de Sad (1740.1814). Marquis de Sade.

Autograph letter signed to an official.

Two pages small in-4°. (Paris), this March 12, 1793, year 2 of the Republic.

“Non-citizen, I am not and will never be an emigrant. »

Superb letter from the Marquis protesting against his inclusion on the list of emigrants.

“ Citizen, let me tell you, it is going a little hastily to have the name of a man appear and display on lists of emigrants , only because this man, in spite of himself, delays by a few days his certificate of residence. Non-citizen, I am not and will never be an emigrant , I have proven it to you by the accuracy that I have taken to provide you with the certificates required by law every three months. This sending was delayed by two causes absolutely independent of me; the first is that the new printed materials have only appeared eight days ago, the second is that when they appeared it was said that they were useless, and that we were going to make them new ones, where the number of witnesses would be reduced to three. I myself was, despite the emigration in which you have given me the grace to understand me, appointed by my Section for the organization of these new certificates ; Finally mine are signed, but both for the exhibition and for the completion of the signatures of the Commune, it takes a month. It will therefore only be in three weeks that I will be able to send you these certificates. You can count on it without fail at this time; If this delay, for which the remedy is not in my power, were to force you to move forward despite the certainty you must nevertheless be in that I am not an emigrant, then I would ask you to let me know, so that that I address the Convention itself , begging it to then decide which of us would be right. And full of confidence in your fairness, I have the honor to call myself, Citizen, with fraternity, your Fellow Citizen Sade. »

Following an administrative error (intentional?), the Marquis de Sade was included on December 13, 1792 on the list of emigrants from the mouths of the Rhône, and his property in the department was sequestered. This mark of infamy followed him for a long time and the so-called émigré was arrested a year later.