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Lettre autographe à sa femme. Folie et écriture : « Obtiens de me voir seule (...) tu verras que je te ferais un signal infiniment (...) spirituel »
Autograph letter to his wife. Writing and insanity: "Arrange to meet me alone...you will see that I shall make an infinitely...spiritual sign to you."
S. n.|s. l. • [Prison de la Bastille] [Paris] s. d. [printemps 1784]|10 x 15.60 cm|2 pages sur un feuillet remplié
Unavailable
⬨ 59111
Autograph letter to his wife. Writing and insanity: “Arrange to meet me alone…you will see that I shall make an infinitely…spiritual sign to you.”
”Arrange to meet me alone as you have allowed me to request and you will see that I shall make an infinitely more spiritual sign to you than all the council of la présidente”.
Autograph letterfrom the Marquis de Sade to his wife. Two pages on a folded leaf, in a fine, close hand.
Several underlinings.
Address of Madame de Sade in Paris on the fourth page.
This letter was published in the Marquis de Sade’s correspondence.
Provenance : family archives.
Pauvert mistakenly dates this letter to March 1781 when Sade was still imprisoned at Vincennes and banned from receiving visitors for bad behavior. Actually written in the spring of 1784 in the Bastille, it shows the same sense of febrile anxiety on the part of the Marquis, who is hoping for a visit from his confidante. “It seems to me that, no matter what you say, you are in no great hurry to come and see me. It’s now eight days since everything is amenable and the roads are splendid, and yet you hardly seem pressed. You have permission, so who can stop you now?”.
These reproaches were not necessarily fair and were part of a pattern of emotional blackmail whose rules, which had been fixed back in Vincennes, rested on alternating between suffering and pleasure, borne and desired in turn. ”If I must be here a long time, then do request a visit, no matter how difficult it might be; it cannot fail to be of great consolation to me. If I don’t have to be here long, don’t bother because the pleasure I would have in seeing you here could not but be mixed with an infinite regret for me. Do you understand now? And will you stick the knife into me again this way?” (Letter to Renée-Pélagie, February 1779).
This see-saw dynamic seems to prefigure the perverse rituals of the Marquis’ characters to be. Here we begin to see the outline, very finely drawn, of what would go on to make up the narrative cogs of Sade’s writing, especially in terms of his use of “signs”, something regularly invoked by Sade and which espouse in meaning his moods of insanity.
Thus, in this letter, does the recurrent mention of the enigmatic “sign” first and foremost refer to the hoped-for date of his release, and therefore serve to put off the visit by his wife?
” Are we not yet at the day of the sign? Then we must await the day of the sign. “
A few lines later, nonetheless, this same “signal” seems to take on another, more opaque, meaning altogether.
” Arrange to meet me alone as you have allowed me to request and you will see that I shall make an infinitely more spiritual sign to you than all the council of la présidente”.
A central part of the Marquis’ thinking in prison, this coded language, like the imagined interpretations of the letters of his correspondents, serves to fuel the theories of researchers, philosophers, mathematicians, and poets undertaking biographies. Thus, Gilbert Lely says that, far from being the symptom of a psychosis, Sade’s recourse to signs is a “defensive reaction on the part of his psyche, a subconscious fight against despair, into which his reason might have sunk without the aid of such a distraction.”
Absent from his correspondence during his eleven years of freedom, these sibylline semantic layers, which “truly defy semiotic perspicacity” (Lever p.637), would go on to reappear in his Charenton diary. But Sade would go on to tame the irrepressible oracular madness on display in the first part of his letter thanks to his writing of plays and novels, which was both a straitjacket of treatment and a cathartic escape.
We can also see, as the letter goes on, the importance of his increasing desire to write:
” Please send me the blank notebooks I asked for, one of 600 pages and one of 100, both sewn like the ones for my comedies and all ruled, I really can’t do without them any more and above all please don’t forget to slip me your clumsy and ridiculous messages, and don’t forget to mention them during our interview, though they’ll be confiscated the second you turn your back, yes, please don’t forget all that, because it’s thoroughly enlightening. Here is a stomacher for you. ”.
But Madame de Sade was not only the intermediary for the numerous orders of her literary husband. It was also she who was tasked with making the corrections forgotten by the abbé Amblet, tutor to the young Donatien during his Paris years until Louis-le-Grand, and faithful proofer of his former pupil’s texts. It is the explicit reference to his play Tancrède, that allows us to date this letter precisely to the spring of 1784, since we know that there was an exchange between Sade and Amblet about this work in April 1784. Gilbert Lely confirms the year: “Tancrède ‘a lyrical scene in one act in hexameter with music…’ must have been written a few weeks before the month of February 1784: and indeed, in a letter written at the same time, the Marquis notes to Madame de Sade that he expects her opinion on the piece.” (Lely, Vie du Marquis de Sade, p. 405).
As well as her opinion, Sade asked his wife to make some direct changes to his text:
” If you have the drug I sent you a month ago copied, here are three key faults that you must correct, independently of the ones Amblet will have found.
In the prose preamble that precedes the initial verses, seven or eight lines down, after the words occupies the entire right-hand side, you have to add ‘the Jordan runs beyond the valley throughout the bottom and meanders back behind the city walls. On this side of the valley, etc.’ This passage was not added in the final version.
Here’s how to fix this phrase, which involves some deletions, which I would ask you to make. Towards the middle of this prose section, after the words and its first rays pick out you have to add ‘the Mediterranean on the far left, which we have not yet seen’ and delete everything that would make the phrase work differently. Error corrected and “first ray” in the singular in the printed text.
In the verses.
In Tancred’s couplet where there are 3 words (?), you have to put these clouds when they are pure instead of these fires. Error corrected.
When he gives his retainers his orders for the mausoleum, he should say under the unhappy contours and not under the happy contours
The error seems to have been corrected and then changed once more. A note at the bottom of the page says: ‘deleted: unhappy’.
All these are important, if minor errors.”
Essential to understanding Sade’s work, this letter sheds light on to important role of Renée-Pélagie as critic and literary corrector. It is also an essential document on the development of Tancrède, a very important play for the Marquis who, enthused by his reading of Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, decided to embark on the writing of his only melodrama.
Maurice Lever also highlights that during his first years in detention, “Sade devoted a large part of his time to theatre, an absolute and demanding passion that he was never to forsake. On the 24th December 1780, he was sketching out his comedy, L'Inconstant…then he turned to his wife, who would remain his best literary guide, along with the abbé Amblet, to the end. “
”Arrange to meet me alone as you have allowed me to request and you will see that I shall make an infinitely more spiritual sign to you than all the council of la présidente”.
Autograph letterfrom the Marquis de Sade to his wife. Two pages on a folded leaf, in a fine, close hand.
Several underlinings.
Address of Madame de Sade in Paris on the fourth page.
This letter was published in the Marquis de Sade’s correspondence.
Provenance : family archives.
Pauvert mistakenly dates this letter to March 1781 when Sade was still imprisoned at Vincennes and banned from receiving visitors for bad behavior. Actually written in the spring of 1784 in the Bastille, it shows the same sense of febrile anxiety on the part of the Marquis, who is hoping for a visit from his confidante. “It seems to me that, no matter what you say, you are in no great hurry to come and see me. It’s now eight days since everything is amenable and the roads are splendid, and yet you hardly seem pressed. You have permission, so who can stop you now?”.
These reproaches were not necessarily fair and were part of a pattern of emotional blackmail whose rules, which had been fixed back in Vincennes, rested on alternating between suffering and pleasure, borne and desired in turn. ”If I must be here a long time, then do request a visit, no matter how difficult it might be; it cannot fail to be of great consolation to me. If I don’t have to be here long, don’t bother because the pleasure I would have in seeing you here could not but be mixed with an infinite regret for me. Do you understand now? And will you stick the knife into me again this way?” (Letter to Renée-Pélagie, February 1779).
This see-saw dynamic seems to prefigure the perverse rituals of the Marquis’ characters to be. Here we begin to see the outline, very finely drawn, of what would go on to make up the narrative cogs of Sade’s writing, especially in terms of his use of “signs”, something regularly invoked by Sade and which espouse in meaning his moods of insanity.
Thus, in this letter, does the recurrent mention of the enigmatic “sign” first and foremost refer to the hoped-for date of his release, and therefore serve to put off the visit by his wife?
” Are we not yet at the day of the sign? Then we must await the day of the sign. “
A few lines later, nonetheless, this same “signal” seems to take on another, more opaque, meaning altogether.
” Arrange to meet me alone as you have allowed me to request and you will see that I shall make an infinitely more spiritual sign to you than all the council of la présidente”.
A central part of the Marquis’ thinking in prison, this coded language, like the imagined interpretations of the letters of his correspondents, serves to fuel the theories of researchers, philosophers, mathematicians, and poets undertaking biographies. Thus, Gilbert Lely says that, far from being the symptom of a psychosis, Sade’s recourse to signs is a “defensive reaction on the part of his psyche, a subconscious fight against despair, into which his reason might have sunk without the aid of such a distraction.”
Absent from his correspondence during his eleven years of freedom, these sibylline semantic layers, which “truly defy semiotic perspicacity” (Lever p.637), would go on to reappear in his Charenton diary. But Sade would go on to tame the irrepressible oracular madness on display in the first part of his letter thanks to his writing of plays and novels, which was both a straitjacket of treatment and a cathartic escape.
We can also see, as the letter goes on, the importance of his increasing desire to write:
” Please send me the blank notebooks I asked for, one of 600 pages and one of 100, both sewn like the ones for my comedies and all ruled, I really can’t do without them any more and above all please don’t forget to slip me your clumsy and ridiculous messages, and don’t forget to mention them during our interview, though they’ll be confiscated the second you turn your back, yes, please don’t forget all that, because it’s thoroughly enlightening. Here is a stomacher for you. ”.
But Madame de Sade was not only the intermediary for the numerous orders of her literary husband. It was also she who was tasked with making the corrections forgotten by the abbé Amblet, tutor to the young Donatien during his Paris years until Louis-le-Grand, and faithful proofer of his former pupil’s texts. It is the explicit reference to his play Tancrède, that allows us to date this letter precisely to the spring of 1784, since we know that there was an exchange between Sade and Amblet about this work in April 1784. Gilbert Lely confirms the year: “Tancrède ‘a lyrical scene in one act in hexameter with music…’ must have been written a few weeks before the month of February 1784: and indeed, in a letter written at the same time, the Marquis notes to Madame de Sade that he expects her opinion on the piece.” (Lely, Vie du Marquis de Sade, p. 405).
As well as her opinion, Sade asked his wife to make some direct changes to his text:
” If you have the drug I sent you a month ago copied, here are three key faults that you must correct, independently of the ones Amblet will have found.
In the prose preamble that precedes the initial verses, seven or eight lines down, after the words occupies the entire right-hand side, you have to add ‘the Jordan runs beyond the valley throughout the bottom and meanders back behind the city walls. On this side of the valley, etc.’ This passage was not added in the final version.
Here’s how to fix this phrase, which involves some deletions, which I would ask you to make. Towards the middle of this prose section, after the words and its first rays pick out you have to add ‘the Mediterranean on the far left, which we have not yet seen’ and delete everything that would make the phrase work differently. Error corrected and “first ray” in the singular in the printed text.
In the verses.
In Tancred’s couplet where there are 3 words (?), you have to put these clouds when they are pure instead of these fires. Error corrected.
When he gives his retainers his orders for the mausoleum, he should say under the unhappy contours and not under the happy contours
The error seems to have been corrected and then changed once more. A note at the bottom of the page says: ‘deleted: unhappy’.
All these are important, if minor errors.”
Essential to understanding Sade’s work, this letter sheds light on to important role of Renée-Pélagie as critic and literary corrector. It is also an essential document on the development of Tancrède, a very important play for the Marquis who, enthused by his reading of Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, decided to embark on the writing of his only melodrama.
Maurice Lever also highlights that during his first years in detention, “Sade devoted a large part of his time to theatre, an absolute and demanding passion that he was never to forsake. On the 24th December 1780, he was sketching out his comedy, L'Inconstant…then he turned to his wife, who would remain his best literary guide, along with the abbé Amblet, to the end. “
*
Pauvert attribue à cette lettre la date fautive de mars 1781 alors que Sade était encore emprisonné à Vincennes et privé de visites pour cause de mauvais comportement. En réalité rédigée à La Bastille au printemps 1784, elle trahit la même fébrilité inquiète du Marquis, espérant une visite de sa confidente : « Il me paraît, quoi que vous en disiez que votre empressement à me venir voir n'est pas très grand. Voilà huit jours que tout est libre et que les chemins sont superbes et pourtant vous ne vous pressez guères. Vous avez la permission qui peut donc vous arrêter à présent ? ».
Ces reproches ne sont pas nécessairement fondés et procèdent d'un jeu de chantage affectif dont les règles, établies dès Vincennes, reposent sur une oscillation entre souffrance et plaisir, tour à tour subis et désirés : « Si je dois être ici longtemps, sans doute, demandez à me voir, quelque gêne qu'il y ait ; ce ne peut être qu'une grande consolation pour moi. Si je ne dois pas y être longtemps, ne le demandez pas, parce que le plaisir que j'aurais de vous voir ici ne pourrait être mêlé que d'une infinité de chagrin pour moi. L'entendez-vous à présent ? Et me repoignarderez-vous encore de ce sens-là ? » (Lettre à Renée-Pélagie, février 1779).
Cette mécanique de balancier semble préfigurer les rituels pervers des futurs personnages du Marquis. Se dessine alors, en filigrane, ce qui constituera les rouages romanesques de l'écriture sadienne, notamment par l'utilisation de « signaux », régulièrement invoqués par Sade et dont le sens épouse ses humeurs lunatiques.
Ainsi dans cette lettre, la mention récurrente de cet énigmatique « signal », correspond-elle dans un premier temps à la date espérée de sa levée d'écrou, et sert donc à ajourner la visite de sa femme : « Est-ce que nous ne sommes pas encore au jour du signal. Alors, il faut donc attendre le jour du signal. »
Quelques lignes plus loin, pourtant, ce même « signal » semble recouvrir une tout autre acception bien plus opaque :
« Obtiens de me voir seule comme tu m'as permis de le demander, et tu verras que je te ferais un signal infiniment plus spirituel que tout ceux du conciliabule de la présidente. »
Composante essentielle de la pensée carcérale du Marquis, ce langage codé comme les interprétations fantasmées des lettres de ses correspondants, alimentent les hypothèses des chercheurs, philosophes, mathématiciens... et poètes biographes. Ainsi Gilbert Lely estime que, loin d'être le symptôme d'une psychose, le recours aux signaux est une « réaction de défense de son psychisme, une lutte inconsciente contre le désespoir où sa raison aurait pu sombrer, sans le secours d'un tel dérivatif ». Absentes de la correspondance durant ses onze années de liberté, ces strates sémantiques sibyllines, « véritable défi à la perspicacité sémiologique » (Lever p.637), réapparaitront dans son journal de Charenton.
Mais cette irrépressible folie oraculaire, qui affleure dans la première partie de la lettre, Sade va la dompter grâce à l'écriture théâtrale et romanesque, à la fois camisole thérapeutique et évasion cathartique.
On assiste ainsi dans la suite de la lettre à l'importance croissante de son désir d'écrire :
« Envoie-moi je t'en prie les cahiers blancs demandés un de 600 pages et un de 100, tous deux brochés comme ceux de mes comédies et tout margés, voici le temps où je ne puis absolument m'en passer et surtout n'oublie pas la gentillesse d'apporter bien des commissions mal faites et ridicules, dont tu me diras par un mot à la visite et qui me seront retirées dès que tu auras le dos tourné oui je t'en prie n'oublie pas cela, car ça est incroyablement lumineux. Voilà une pièce d'estomac que je t'envoie. ».
Mais Madame de Sade ne sert pas seulement d'intermédiaire pour les nombreuses commandes de son élégiaque époux ; c'est également elle qui est chargée de reporter des corrections oubliées par l'abbé Amblet, précepteur du jeune Donatien dès ses années parisiennes à Louis-le-Grand et fidèle relecteur des textes de son ancien élève. C'est la référence explicite à sa pièce Tancrède, qui permet de dater précisément notre lettre au printemps 1784, puisque l'on connait un échange entre Sade et Amblet à propos de cette œuvre, daté d'avril 1784. Cette même année est confirmée par Gilbert Lely : « Tancrède « scène lyrique en un acte et en hexamètres mêlés de musique (...) » a dû être composé peu de semaines avant le mois de février 1784 : en effet, dans une lettre de la même époque, le marquis indique à Mme de Sade qu'il attend d'elle un jugement sur sa pièce. » (Lely, Vie du Marquis de Sade, p. 405).
Outre son jugement, Sade demande à sa femme de bien vouloir apporter directement certaines modifications à son texte :
« Si tu fais copier cette drogue que je t'ai envoyé il y a un mois ; voici trois fautes essentielles à corriger indépendamment de celles qu'Amblet avait pu trouver. »
Dans le programme en prose qui précède les premiers vers à sept ou huit lignes du commencement il faut mettre après les mots occupe toute la droite "le jourdain coule au delà de la vallée dans toute l'étendue du fond et vient serpenter par derrière les murs de la ville. De ce côté ci de la vallée etc." Ce passage n'a pas été ajouté dans la version finale
Voilà comment il faut rétablir cette phrase ce qui suppose quelqu'effacement que tu ferais je t'en prie. Vers le milieu de ce morceau de prose après le mot et ses premiers rayons font apercevoir il faut mettre "la méditerranée dans le lointain de gauche que l'on avait point encore vu" et effacer tout ce qui ne forme pas la phrase ainsi. Faute corrigée et « premier rayon » au singulier dans le texte imprimé.
Dans les vers.
Au couplet de Tancrède où il y a 3 mots (?) il faut mettre ces nœuds quand ils sont purs au lieu de ces feux. Faute corrigée.
Quand il donne à ses ecuyers ses ordres pour le mausolée, il faut qu'il dise sous les tristes contours au lieu de sous les heureux contours
La faute semble avoir été corrigée puis modifiée de nouveau. Une note de bas de page indique « Rayé : tristes ».
Toutes ces fautes sont conséquentes quoique minutieuses. »
Primordiale pour la compréhension du travail sadien, notre lettre met en lumière le rôle important de critique et correctrice littéraire de Renée-Pélagie. C'est en outre un document primordial concernant l'élaboration de Tancrède, pièce d'une grande importance pour le Marquis qui, enthousiasmé par la lecture de la Jérusalem délivrée du Tasse, décide de se lancer dans la rédaction de son unique mélodrame.
Maurice Lever souligne d'ailleurs qu'au cours de ses premières années de détention « Sade consacre une grande partie de son temps au théâtre, passion absolue, exigeante, qui ne l'abandonnera jamais. Le 24 décembre 1780, il trace l'esquisse de sa comédie de L'Inconstant [...]. Il l'adresse ensuite à sa femme, qui demeurera jusqu'à la fin sa meilleure conseillère littéraire avec l'abbé Amblet. ».
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- Year:s. d. [printemps 1784]
- Dimensions:10 x 15.60 cm
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