Marquis de Sade

Definition

Comte Donatien Alphonse Francois De Sade (1740-1814) better known as Marquis de Sade, a Provencal nobleman and author of the erotic novels: Justine (1791), Juliette (1798), Les crimes de l'amour (The Crimes of Love) (1788), Les 120 Journées de Sodome (120 Days of Sodom) (1784). Sadism was described by him and received its name from him. According to his chronicles, De Sade began inflicting pain on people for sexual excitement and pleasure at age 26; he repeatedly abused and tortured prostitutes whom he whipped, knifed, and half poisoned with Spanish fly. Later, he corrupted and abused children of both sexes. In 1772, at age 32, he was tried and sentenced to death for a series of sexual crimes. He escaped to Italy, but on his return in 1777, at age 37, he was arrested and imprisoned at Vincennes; after six years there he was transferred to the Bastille until 1790 when he was removed to the asylum for the insane at Charenton where he spent the last 13 years of his life.