SADE writes to his wife from his prison in Vincennes.

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

Autograph letter to his wife, Renée-Pélagie de Montreuil.

One page in-12° on bi-folio. Autograph address.

Two small burns at the letterhead. (Vincennes Prison – February 1783)

“So am I here for years?” Goodbye, I am in despair. »

Sade, imprisoned in the Vincennes Dungeon and banned from visits for more than two months, sends his wife a dense letter mixing thanks, suffering, complaints, love, hatred, supplications and reproaches.

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» I received the letter from the doctor, I thank you. I will respond when I can or my mind can. In the name of God, tell me what I need to write to him or I'll leave him there. I asked you most earnestly not to send me anything until March 1st. Let me breathe in the name of God for at least fifteen days, without overwhelming me like you do with dagger after dagger.

I added to this that if you could get me to come and see me, towards the beginning of Lent, the greatest service you could render me would be to bring me yourself these things which will cause me to die if I see it coming without you. So grant me what I ask of you at least once in my life and do the impossible to bring me all this yourself; I don't need anything, I tell you, before this time of March 1st ^and that will wait until March 8th if you can come and see me at that time.

Oh my god, for six years I have suffered and so cruelly and always by you and yours! Will I therefore never obtain the slightest favor from the executioners who surround you? Are they not yet tired of persecuting me – for me I am tired of suffering, oh my God, I am at the end of my tether. If you saw me, I would make you feel sorry and if someone had the power to sell you my awful condition you would not repeat it daily (…) As you do with your execrable letters, what a monster. Oh my god, what monster whispers to you the expressions of languor that you use and are therefore here for years? Goodbye, I am in despair. “

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It was at the beginning of 1783 that the Marquis suffered significant eye inflammations; he almost completely lost the use of his eyes from January to July 1783. Sade wrote a detailed report of his ailments in a precious document entitled Journal de mon oeil . Concerning his headaches, he wrote in his Journal for the month of February: “On the 9th, suffering horribly, I had a good night but had great headaches. On the 10th, my head hurt so much that I couldn't get up until three o'clock. » . It is moreover this unique allusion to headaches which allows us to precisely date this letter.

The “ doctor ” in question here is none other than Henri Grandjean, eye surgeon to the king and the royal family, sent to examine the prisoner following his urgent requests: “Please send me a oculist doctor, and the best in Paris. » (Letter to Renée-Pélagie dated February 4, 1783).

However, it is under the effect of this emerging blindness and pain, which deprive him of all distraction and force him into inertia, that Sade begins to imagine his future erotic odysseys as he confessed a few months later in a letter of April 1783: “My eye is still the same, and we are very far from even thinking about curing it […]. For the rest, I occupy myself less with it, I read less, I work less, and my mind wanders on other things with a force so prodigiously more lively, that in reality, with the disadvantage that it is very large, I would almost be tempted not to be angry about it! I had always heard it said that an affected sense tripled the power of the imagination, and I experience it. It made me invent a singular rule of pleasure. This is because I am very convinced that we would succeed in rendering the pleasures of love to the highest possible degree of force, by deadening one or two senses, and even more, each time we want to enjoy. » .