The Depravity of the Marquis De Sade

Summary

Podcast Summary: Betwixt The Sheets – The Depravity of the Marquis de Sade
Host: Dr. Kate Lister
Guest: Joel Warner (Author, Journalist)
Date: April 14, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dr. Kate Lister delves deep into the infamous life and enduring legacy of the Marquis de Sade, the 18th-century French aristocrat whose name became synonymous with sadism. With guest Joel Warner—author of "The Curse of the Marquis de Sade"—the discussion explores de Sade’s tumultuous life, his crimes, his writings (most notably 120 Days of Sodom), and the ongoing debate over his place in cultural and literary history. The episode unpacks the stark realities behind the myth, the brutality of his actions, and how his work has rippled through generations of scandal, censorship, and analysis.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Early Life & Background of the Marquis de Sade

• Aristocratic Birth and Dysfunctional Upbringing

  • Born Alphonse Francois de Sade in 18th-century Paris, in immense privilege ([06:45]).
  • Father was a notorious libertine; mother retreated into a convent ([08:16]).
  • Surrounded by deeply amoral and abusive role models, including an uncle (a priest), rumored to be sexually involved with servants ([08:45]).
  • “He was kind of under the tutelage of some pretty horrible aristocrats. … Not a lot of great role models for our young Marquis de Sade here.” – Joel Warner ([08:45])

• Sense of Entitlement and Immunity

  • Embodies the impunity of pre-revolutionary French aristocracy ([09:19]).
  • “That mixed with just this assumption that as part of the aristocracy you can do what you like.” – Kate Lister ([09:24])

Marriage, Early Adult Life, and Escalations

• Arranged Marriage

  • Married at 23 to a wealthy aristocrat (Reneé), combining his title with her wealth ([09:51]).
  • Relationship quickly devolved, only lasting a few months before scandal ([10:36]).

• First Notorious Incident: The Testard Affair

  • Hired sex worker Jeanne Testard, escalated to imprisonment, forced blasphemy, threats, and physical abuse ([11:52]).
  • Jeanne reported him to police—an extraordinary move for a sex worker against an aristocrat in that era ([13:00]).
  • Resulted in short imprisonment; promptly released due to connections ([13:20]).
  • “She ended up going to the police and reporting this. So as always, how many other incidents weren't reported?” – Joel Warner ([12:52])

• Pattern of Escalation: The Rose Keller Case

  • In 1768, repeated violent abuse with beggar Rose Keller: unlawful imprisonment, whipping, self-wounding, pouring hot wax ([14:47]).
  • Again, repercussions were brief; his mother-in-law paid witnesses for silence, and he was exiled to the country ([16:40]).

The System of Protection and the Limits of Power

• Mother-in-Law's Role
  • The formidable “Presidente” alternately enabled and ultimately withdrew support as de Sade’s depravity grew ([16:47]).
  • “She was the one who at first wielded her power to get Saad out of trouble ... but there was a point when she said, okay, this guy is way too much trouble.” – Joel Warner ([16:52])
  • The use of lettre de cachet—imprisonment at the king’s discretion, bypassing trials—allowed both protection and final removal ([17:36]).

Increasing Depravity: The Marseille Incident

• Orgies and Poisoning
  • Involved multiple sex workers in acts of flagellation, sodomy, and the administration of “Spanish fly” (toxic aphrodisiac), resulting in mass illness ([18:31]).
  • Outcry focused more on the crime of sodomy than poisoning or violence ([19:57]).
  • “The thing that to the authorities was the most concerning...was the sodomy. It wasn't even hurting the women.” – Joel Warner ([19:57])

Fleeing Justice & Family Complicity

• Death Sentence In Absentia and Life on the Run

  • De Sade and his manservant sentenced to death; effigies burned in their absence ([20:11]–[20:22]).
  • Fled with his sister-in-law, who was complicit and possibly romantically involved ([20:51]).

• Wife's Role and the Triolet Affair

  • Discussion of wife’s knowledge and limited autonomy: uncertain culpability, sometimes complicit, under societal and marital pressures ([22:31]–[23:29]).
  • “I'm not saying she's innocent ... but for us to frame her as this kind of Bonnie and Clyde duo ... I don't think that would be fair.” – Joel Warner ([23:20])

• Orgies, Imprisonment, and Theatrical Abuse

  • Servants lured, abused, and rumors of murder—mirroring scenes later depicted in his own writings ([23:34]–[24:16]).

Final Downfall: Revolution and Imprisonment

• Betrayal by His Mother-in-Law

  • Ultimately, the “Presidente” orchestrates his final arrest and indefinite imprisonment via lettre de cachet ([25:00]).
  • “At this point she's like, okay, I'm done, I'm washing my hands.” – Kate Lister ([25:02])

• The Bastille and Writing the 120 Days of Sodom

  • Imprisoned in the Bastille, where he produces his most notorious work on scraps of paper glued into a lengthy scroll ([26:09], [26:18], [29:08]).
  • The content of 120 Days of Sodom is extreme, relentless, and encyclopedic in its depiction of abuse ([27:32]–[28:55]).
  • “Every year they’d come back with this thousand yard stare in their eyes like, holy hell. Like, I know, I know. It is just an encyclopedia of awful things.” – Kate Lister ([28:07])

• The Scroll's Journey

  • The manuscript was lost, recovered, passed through hands of erotica collectors, sex researchers, and played a role in early 20th-century sexual science and surrealist circles ([29:45]–[31:39]).
  • “It was framed as scientific ... sexuality really is a spectrum.” – Joel Warner ([30:23], [30:58])

Life After the Revolution and Final Years

• Adapting to Survive
  • Avoided execution by a matter of days; rebranded as Citizen Saad, involved in revolutionary committees ([33:44]–[34:36]).
  • Survived both the ancient regime and Robespierre’s Terror, ultimately dying in Charenton asylum in 1814 ([37:49]–[38:04]).
  • Myth-making around his posthumous reputation began with the exhumation and study of his skull ([38:10]–[39:03]).

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Legacy & Debates

The Content and Impact of de Sade’s Work

• Art vs. Atrocity
  • Debate over whether his writing is “pornography” or a study in the abuse of power ([42:40]–[43:06]).
  • De Sade’s work used in varying ways: inspiration for sexual science, surrealism, and later critical feminist readings by de Beauvoir and Angela Carter ([41:07]).
  • “It’s not about pleasure. It is about power.” – Joel Warner ([43:06])

Feminist and Critical Reappraisals

• “Some prominent feminist scholars ... Simone de Beauvoir wrote 'Must We Burn Sade?', Angela Carter wrote 'The Sadeian Woman.' Both of them have defended his work.” – Kate Lister ([41:07])

Modern Parallels

• Joel Warner draws parallels between de Sade’s accounts of aristocratic depravity and continuing stories of unaccountable power and abuse (e.g., Epstein files) ([43:14]–[44:51]):
  • “Instead of me working on the text, the text is working on me.” – Citing translator Will McMorran’s experience with 120 Days of Sodom ([44:26])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The Marquis de Sade ... became obsessed with driving his own self pleasure from pain, both in his real life and in his writing, where we get the word sadism from.” – Joel Warner ([05:24])
• “There's a very big difference between consensual kink, bdsm, sadism, power play, and what this guy was doing.” – Kate Lister ([06:29])
• “He was first locked up at the age of 24 and then spent around 30 of his 74 years in jails and lunatic asylums.” – Kate Lister ([00:55])
• “Say what you will about this guy, he was wily.” – Joel Warner ([33:44])
• “If you like what you heard, well, get help. That’s what I would say.” – Kate Lister ([46:38])

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Introduction & Context: [00:55]–[04:44]
• Early Life & Abuse: [06:45]–[09:19]
• Arranged Marriage & First Scandal: [09:51]–[13:20]
• Repeat Offenses & Mother-in-law’s Role: [14:16]–[17:36]
• Marseille Incident & Sodomy Charges: [18:31]–[20:00]
• Sister-in-law and Fleeing Justice: [20:51]–[22:07]
• Triolet Affair & Ruthless Abuse: [23:34]–[24:16]
• Final Imprisonment via Lettres de Cachet: [25:00]–[26:09]
• Bastille, Writing, and 120 Days of Sodom: [26:09]–[29:08]
• How the Scroll Survived: [29:45]–[31:39]
• Surviving the Revolution: [33:44]–[36:36]
• Final Institutionalization & Death: [37:49]–[38:09]
• His Enduring, Controversial Legacy: [39:03]–[43:14]
• Modern Parallels and Concluding Thoughts: [43:14]–[46:26]

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Tone & Style

Throughout the episode, Kate Lister mixes irreverence and exasperated humor with rigorous historical insight. Joel Warner responds with thoughtful, measured context, always careful to differentiate between consensual sexual exploration and de Sade’s “power and cruelty for its own sake.” The discussion brings historical horror face to face with ongoing questions of what power does when left unchecked—a theme that resonates well beyond the 18th century.

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This episode provides a thoroughly unsparing yet historically vital look at one of the most taboo figures in European history, offering insight, context, and ethical reflection on his long shadow over culture and politics.

Transcript

[A]

Do you want even more shocking and scandalous history? Like why the ancient Greek statues had such small manhoods or what went on behind closed doors in the Georgian era? Well, sign up to history hit where you can see me discover the scandalous side of history as well as hundreds of hours of original documentaries plus new releases every week covering everything from prehistoric Scotland to the Treaty of Versailles. Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com subscribe. Oh no, my coffee. Brawny here.

[B]

New brawny 3 ply is now more absorbent.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

Got a clean shirt. Do you wear plaid?

[D]

Some of the strongest.

[A]

Hello, my lovely betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. Welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the show where we look at the awful things people have done to each other and to, well, other things as well in the pursuit of pleasure. That's right, we root around in the pants of history for your entertainment. But before we can do any of that, I do have to tell you this is an adult podcast book about adults to other adults, about adulty things and a daughter wake covering rage old subjects. Need to be an adult too to feel safer. I feel safer. Right, let's do it. 14th July 1789 and we are in revolutionary France. The Bastille is falling. The medieval fortress turned prison holds just a handful of prisoners as crowds of revolutionaries storm in searching for gunpowder. And one aristocrat who survives the Bastille because he was whisked away mere weeks before it all happened, was the infamous Maki de Sade. Yep, luck was with him and he is now imprisoned elsewhere. But his most famous work, 120 Days of Sodom, written on small pieces of paper and glued together as a 39 foot scroll, remains hidden inside the wall of his former cell. When his wife comes to retrieve it, she finds the prison overrun and Saad believes it'll be lost forever and. And apparently he wept tears of blood over it. But the work was not lost. No, like a bad penny, it keeps turning up. And not only did it turn up, it found its way into the hands of a publisher as well. Although many of you might wish that it hadn't. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. As a historian, people often ask me which historical figures I would invite to a dream dinner party. Who would I. I think Nell Gwyn would be fun to have and obviously Byron, just to ask him some serious questions. But what people don't ask Is who would you absolutely not let in? Whose name would you not have on the list? And today's subject is surely one of those. The Marquis de Sade, the man who gave his name to Sadism. Back in 18th century France, before the revolution, aristocrats had something of a free pass. It was one of the reasons they had the revolution in the first place. So what would you have to do as an aristocrat to be imprisoned for nearly half your lifetime? How bad to be your behaviour have to be? He was first locked up at the age of 24 and then spent around 30 of his 74 years in jails and lunatic asylums. It was such a piece of work that his own mother in law requested his arrest on multiple occasions. Are you intrigued? Well, I know I am. And I'm joined today by author and journalist Joel Warner to find out more about Saad and his infamous legacy. Deep breaths everybody. Let's do this. Well, hello and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Joel Warner. How are you doing?

[B]

I'm doing well, thank you for having me.

[A]

I'm thrilled that you are here because I can't believe it's taken us so long to actually have an episode about this man, the Marquis de Sade. My, you have written a biography. Well, you've written about Sardin and a lot of it was biographical. Do you remember when you first met this atrocious human being?

[B]

Well, thankfully I didn't actually meet him personally because I feel like I would probably not enjoy him in person. No, no, probably not. So I think the average person, if you ask them about the Marquis de Sade, they probably would never have heard of him. I probably first heard about him thanks to the movie Quills.

[A]

Oh, I love that film.

[B]

Yes. So I think, I think I probably saw that, gosh, way back in high school. That's probably when I first heard of him.

[A]

And for people listening who aren't sure who he is, can you give us a very quick overview? Who was the Marquis de Sade?

[B]

Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat born in the 18th century in the lap of luxury in Paris. And he basically became obsessed with driving his own self pleasure from pain, both in his real life and in his

[A]

writing, where we get the word sadism from.

[B]

Yes, yes, which I was thinking about this today and it's a bit of a misnomer.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Today I feel like hopefully sadism, when used in a healthful framing, connotes some mutual understanding. Right. The idea of sadism, of masochism, when practiced I think it's all about trust.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[B]

This was not at all what the Marquis de Sade was about. Marquis de Sade was about power and the power that he could exert over others. And the points when he didn't feel power and acted like a very big baby.

[A]

There's a very big difference between consensual kink, bdsm, sadism, power play, and what this guy was doing.

[B]

Yes, 100%.

[A]

Okay. All right, so what was his full name? Where was he born? Let's get into his origin story.

[B]

Oh, look at you asking me the hard questions. Okay. And since I'm American, I'm not even gonna try to do it with a French accent, because that's just beetrocious. I mean, Alphonse Francois, he was born in the heart of Paris to a noble family that could stretch its name back to, I think, like the 13th century France. So this was a true blue family in the palace of Cond? Which is an even more powerful French family. So as he even wrote, he was born in the lap of luxury. You know, as fancy as it gets in pre revolutionary France. Now, he was also one step away. So I think he both was exposed to incredible luxury, and also he saw the Prince of Khan day at the next level. So he was both pampered, and he also felt always a bit aggrieved, which, as you know, for white guys, that's a great combination right there.

[A]

He is born into the lap of luxury. He seems to have every advantage from day dot. I mean, they don't know the revolution is coming, but he's got the title and he's got the goods and he's got the connections. Was it a happy childhood?

[B]

Not as we would associate one today. Right. His. His father, by all accounts, was a libertine himself.

[A]

What do you mean by libertine? For anyone who's listening, what does that

[B]

mean, libertine in a way, in terms of, like, bit of a sex fiend.

[A]

Yeah. It's a nice way of putting it, isn't it?

[B]

Yes, I think. I think there might be better terms. He was apparently caught by Parisian police for soliciting sex with a male sex worker. This was his father. His mother kind of locked herself away in a convent for most of Saad's life. So he was kind of under the tutelage of some pretty horrible aristocrats. This one guy who they said. And who knows how apocryphal is this, but apparently a hunted peasant's for fun.

[A]

Wow. Okay.

[B]

Yeah. So then he went and spent some time with his. His uncle, the Abi Desad. And you would think, you know, as a man of the church, that this guy maybe a little more of a positive role model. But apparently he was carrying on with both his servant as well as her daughter in the chateau. So, like. So. So not a lot of great role models for our young Marquis de Sade here.

[A]

No. This sounds quite dysfunctional, actually. This doesn't sound like a very happy. This is. This is somebody being raised with cruelty and abuse around him.

[B]

Yes. That mixed with just this assumption that as part of the aristocracy you can

[A]

do what you like.

[B]

Exactly. That you could operate with absolutely no repercussions.

[A]

Thank God we don't do that anymore, eh?

[B]

Oh, yeah. It's so much better now.

[A]

Okay, so we've got Jung. I keep wanting to call him Dotanyun, you know, like after the Three Musketeers.

[B]

I mean, you could be right, but. But I don't know. You're probably correct.

[A]

Probably not, but it's close enough. So Dotania. So. Right. But he does get married. When does he get married? I mean, that's pretty much the done thing at the time.

[B]

Yeah, he got married fairly young. It was an arranged marriage to another aristocrat. Yes. So this was a slightly younger aristocratic family, but they at this point had a lot more money.

[A]

She brings the money.

[B]

So the Saad family had the established noble title, while this other family had a lot more money at this point from like a mercantile type background. So it was an arranged marriage. Saad, who had proclaimed that he was only going to marry for love, was not very happy about this arranged marriage at first. And he railed like the spoiled young person he was. But, you know, it seems that for at least some time the two got along. Well, you could define it as such.

[A]

Okay. And he was 23 when they married.

[B]

Yes, about that. He'd served some time already as an officer in the Seven Years War, where apparently he was pretty good because he apparently had a bit of bloodlust in him.

[A]

Oh, really?

[B]

Yes. So any.

[A]

Anything in those kind of teenage young fella type of years to indicate the fetishes and the person that he would go on to become. Or was it all kind of smooth sailing?

[B]

It wasn't fully smooth sailing. I mean, you know, there was. I mean, there were rumors of him going off with various women, various sex workers, and he wrote to his uncle saying how guilty he felt, but then he would go off and do it the next day. So there was a bit of that. But at that Point. I mean, my assumption is it probably seemed more just this, like, wayward, spoiled aristocrat, so.

[A]

In his oats. Yes, I see. Okay, so the marriage, they're both young, she's rich, he's titled. Seems to be all right in the beginning.

[B]

Well, for a few months.

[A]

Oh, for a few months. Okay. Okay.

[B]

Honeymoon period. I mean, you know, by 1763, you know, just a few months after the marriage, he apparently hired a sex worker named Jean Testard.

[A]

Ah, the Testard affair.

[B]

Yes, the Stard affair.

[A]

Tell us what happens.

[B]

Yes. Now, according to Saad's later testimony, he basically locked her up and asked her if she believed in God.

[A]

See, that's not good, is it?

[B]

Yeah, it's, you know, it's not a great way to start a date, but, you know, that's the way that Saad operated. And basically to kind of prove that there was no God, started shouting obscenities involving Jesus Christ. Saad had either pleasure himself or had her pleasure herself. Using a crucifix and, you know, while shouting more blasphemies, asked her to beat him with a cane, iron scourge. She refused that part. Basically threatened to kill her if she didn't trample on a crucifix. So this was basically him getting off on being like, I can force you to go against your beliefs. Right, right.

[A]

Sounds very extreme. This, I mean, this can't come out of nowhere. Was she just the first one? Like, how do we even know? Did she complain about this? Did she go to the. The police?

[B]

Yes. So she ended up going to the police and reporting this. So as always, how many other incidents weren't reported?

[A]

What did the police do? Because this sounds extraordinary, like this young woman's going to turn up and tell them that she met a client and that, I mean, for a sex worker to even go to the police at this point, it's quite risky. I think they had a legalized system, but even so, to report an aristocrat for doing these things, that must have been extraordinary.

[B]

So the police ended up locking him for a bit, but because of Saad's aristocratic ties, he was released after, like really quickly. Yes. So, you know, he was exiled to his in laws, the Montreal's estates, for a while in Normandy, hoping he would kind of shape up a bit. And at first he seemed like he was doing better, but then a few Years later, in 1768, there was another quote, unquote incident.

[A]

Do we know what happened to Jeanne Testade? Does she turn up in the records again?

[B]

She just, I Mean, this was just one of those many, many women at this point in Paris. Right. Who unfortunately, we don't have historical records of these people other than, you know, these kind of snippets from, say, police reports, which will be usually when bad things are happening. So. Right. This was just part of the underclass. So it's really hard to know what happened to these individuals.

[A]

Would his wife have known about this at the time? I mean, was this like a scandal that caught a lot of attention or is it just, was it like hushed up?

[B]

It was attempted to be hushed up, but with the kind of circles of connections in the whole rumor industry that was surely thriving around Versailles at that point, you know, this was surely a poorly kept secret. Saad's wife was surely aware of all of this. I mean, he was literally locked up by the Royal police.

[A]

So they knew. So people know. Okay.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

What happens in 1768.

[B]

So at this point, and this once again, is, is based on the police reports afterward. Right. So who knows if there are other things in between. This beggar woman named Rose Keller said that Saad essentially took her to his country residence and locked her up and tied her down, apparently whipped her with either a cane or cat of nine tails. According to her, he cut her with a pen knife and poured hot wax into the wounds.

[A]

God.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, like threatened to kill her. She screamed. Eventually she managed to escape out a window and track down the local magistrate. So once again, Saad was locked up.

[A]

Wow, that's horrendous abuse that's happening here. Where was this? Where did this happen? At his house. At his home?

[B]

Yeah, he picked her up in Paris and took her to his kind of country residence outside of this city.

[A]

So he's been reported for the second time. The police are involved for the second time. What happens to him now?

[B]

Once again, he's locked up for this time, a few more months. But once again, this is an aristocrat. It doesn't look good for high society. This guy stays locked in prison a whole long time at this point. Right. They like to look after their own. By November, he was once again released on the condition that he go and occupy himself at La Coste, which was his family estate in the south of France.

[A]

I'll be back with Joel and sad after this short break. Didn't his mother in law, like, pay the widow off? Rose Killier.

[B]

So, yes. So what's interesting is one of the most fearsome characters, nicknamed the Presidente.

[A]

Yeah, you better tell us about his mother in law, because that Seems to have been a big influence on him. Who was she?

[B]

She was buddies with the king. So she had the power in the Montreal family, which was the in laws. And she was the one who at first wielded her power to get Saad out of trouble. So saying, hey, you know, we can lock this guy up for a bit, but then eventually we have to release him, but we just kind of have to keep him out of the limelight. And so at first she was, she was helpful, but there was a point when she said, okay, this guy is way too much trouble and he's worth. And that's when Saad started to face the wrath of his mother in law.

[A]

But in the beginning, she's paying witnesses off. He's having. Is it letter de cachet written for him. What was that?

[B]

So letter de cachet is essentially that you are imprisoned at the whim of the King.

[A]

Okay. No trial.

[B]

Oh, no, the king gets to decide this stuff. I don't need to trial for this sort. So at this point, he was locked away for several months on a letter de cachet. And then eventually they kind of say, okay, we can wrap this up if you kind of get out of Paris, but the letter de cachet will actually come up again and not inside's not

[A]

too distant future because keeps kidnapping and beating people up.

[B]

I mean, yeah, he can't, he can't seem to control himself. I mean, he tried. He apparently tries to occupy himself at his villa south of France. He tries to start like a theater festival, whatnot. But in 1772, him and his manservant kind of went on a jaunt to Marseille. And once again, apparently, according to the testimonies afterwards, they hired a group of female sex workers.

[A]

Not again.

[B]

Yes. And then brought them this apartment and engaged them in an orgy involving flagellation, intercourse, sodomy.

[A]

Oh, is this. This the one where he poisoned everyone?

[B]

Yes, but the issue was afterwards, after all of this, several of these women basically got really, really sick. Really sick. And they explained that, well, as part of this thing, Saad had fed them some candies because he said he wanted to savor the gastric aromas of it, which is just gross.

[A]

He is gross, though. That's gonna be a theme as we're going through this. He's unremittingly. With no depth to this gross.

[B]

So then authorities came to the conclusion that he had fed them Spanish fly, which is still this known concept.

[A]

What is Spanish fly? They thought it was an aphrodisiac, right?

[B]

Yeah. But even then there was Assumption that people would kind of lose their will. But yes, it wasn't as seen as such a noxious or dangerous substance. It was today. But. But even then it was like, wow, this guy's poisoning these women. So this was also part of the charges that were levied against Saad, both poisoning and honestly, the thing that to the authorities was the most concerning about all of these accounts was the sodomy. It wasn't the blasphemy. Right. It wasn't even hurting the women.

[A]

Wasn't the poisoning.

[B]

Yes, it was the sodomy.

[A]

Okay, okay. So he's accused of sodomizing people and that's a big deal. Okay.

[B]

Or having people sodomize him. It was all bad.

[A]

Okay, what happens to him this time? Does the mother in law intervene? Does she come sailing in?

[B]

Well, at this point, I mean, he was actually sentenced to death.

[A]

Finally some results coming through.

[B]

Yeah. And they actually had. There was a public execution at this point.

[A]

Jesus. Wow.

[B]

The issue is they couldn't find sad or as manservant. So what they did and they. Apparently this was fairly common. They took effigies of sod and his manservant and burned them to death, even though they were just effigies and people would show up and this would still be an event. So they did that. But basically Saad's on the run at this point. He ends up absconding to Italy for a while with his sister in law.

[A]

Now what's she doing that for? She must know.

[B]

Yes. I mean, this was apparently some more recent kind of letters were discovered. It sounds like this was a mutual thing where his sister in law, who was young and beautiful, of course, and had been studying in this high class convent, had fallen for sod as well. And so they went off for a bit. And amongst all this, at this point, the mother in law is like, okay, we have to get rid of this guy.

[A]

Where's his wife? Where's. Where's Rene in all of this?

[B]

That's a wonderful question. I mean, she's doing the typical aristocratic wife thing. She's still at the sod family home in Lacoste, kind of holding down the fort.

[A]

She must have been mortified.

[B]

Yes. In most descriptions, she has been framed as this kind of fairly weak willed submissive individual. It's hard to know if that's really the case because it's like, how many accounts do we actually have from the honest voice of these women? So it's hard to know for sure. So this was not going well. Saad is on the run. There's a rumor that it is back at Lacoste and there's this massive raid with soldiers scaling the walls and whatnot. But Saad had been like, tipped off a few minutes early, so he'd escaped into the wilderness.

[A]

So.

[B]

So we get all these escapades, right?

[A]

Properly on the run.

[B]

Yes. So a few years later, he's back again. Laka still kind of dodging authorities, but he still can't seem to help himself.

[A]

More incidences, more imprisoning people, more hurting people.

[B]

Yeah. At this point, him and his wife, Renee Pillagi, went to local communities and gathered a bunch of servants for the winter to serve them.

[A]

See, that sounds to me like I don't want to blame the woman, but, like, that sounds like Rene is kind of in the thick of this.

[B]

There is some interesting debate, right? There are points when she seems to be involved in terms of she herself, like a mother in law, having paid off certain. Certain victims. At one point, she apparently accused one of the women who accused Saad of abuse, of stealing from. From the family, and got her locked up and separated her from her child. I think the child died soon after. She did write certain letters to Saad railing against her own family and decrying her love for her husband. Now, with all these accounts, I think you have to factor in how little autonomy and power women, even aristocratic women, had at this time.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I'm not saying she's innocent, but for us to frame her as this kind of Bonnie and Clyde duo where she had just as much authority, I don't think that would be fair.

[A]

Okay, okay, tell me about the. Was it the Triolet affair?

[B]

So they went and brought all these servants up to their chateau, locked them away for the winter, and not long after, rumors of really sketchy things started emerging in the local community and some women kind of ran away. There were later accounts of the bones of victims being buried in the garden of the chateau. So once again, it was as if Saad had almost expanded his abuse into almost theatrical proportions, into this kind of coordinated event. And this will actually emerge back in his writing as well.

[A]

It's really extreme stuff that he's imprisoning people, torturing people. And there must have been people around him and in the villages and stuff. They must have. They must have known that, you know, people keep being recruited there as servants, then coming back while vanishing and having these horrendous stories.

[B]

Yeah, but who's going to do anything about this?

[A]

Yeah, what are you gonna do? Right? See, this is why the revolution happened. Not just because it's sad. But this system of aristocrats are protected at all costs. Right? And the poor people have absolutely no rights whatsoever.

[B]

Oh, none, None.

[A]

But he does eventually. Well, ish. Come a cropper because he does get locked up in the end. So tell me what brings him down?

[B]

What brings him down Is his mother in law.

[A]

Fabulous. Yes, we like her.

[B]

Where at this point she's like, okay, I'm done, I'm washing my hands.

[A]

You'd love to know where the line was for her. Like, what was the incident? That was just like, right, that's it now. Now we've gone too far.

[B]

I have a feeling seducing his young, beautiful sister in law was probably part of the equation.

[A]

I'll do it.

[B]

Right. That probably wasn't great. So she goes back to her friend the king and she's like, okay, I need you to work up another one of your, your letters to cache because it wouldn't do well for us to have a big public trial on all of this. So I just want you to lock this guy up and throw away the key. Yeah, literally. Now, there were still some other escapades. Saad dodged bullets, fired at his chest. He was captured and then escaped again. But eventually he falls into his mother in law's trap and is lured back to Paris where the authorities are waiting. He gets locked up and he is locked in the infamous Bastille prison in the heart of Paris.

[A]

What year was this? Because we've got to remember that the revolution is looming.

[B]

I think it's 1778.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So he's there, he's locked up in the Liberty Tower of the Bastille, and there he sits a whole bunch of years. And this is when he begins to write.

[A]

Okay, and what kind of things is he writing? Apology notes, I hope.

[B]

Yeah, not likely. He had been writing before. He had been trying his hand at plays, a travel log about his time in Italy with his sister in law. But at this point, he has nothing left. I mean, he's in a cell. Well, he's allowed all sorts of accoutrements to decorate a cell because once again, yep, as always, aristocrat, that's what you get. But he's like, okay, I need, I need to do something. And he kind of pours his obsessions into writing. And this is when the most famous thing that he wrote was 120 days of Sodom. And this is what I ended up focusing on in my book. And this was this theoretical novel about these four aristocrats that basically track down and kidnap a bunch of young boys and girls and lock them in their castle and have their way with them over 120 days. So you can see the parallels here. Now, in 120 days of Sodom, apparently the violence that sod afflicts onto his victims reaches an entirely new level.

[A]

Oh, it's an insane work. It's absolutely demented. I used to teach it to students and every year, every year I'd say to them before, before they read it, I'd be like, look, I'm not just, I'm warning you about this one is that this is going to be, this is a rough ride. This not, this is really dark stuff. And every, every year they'd be like looking at me, like, ha, come at me old timey person, bring it on. And every week they'd come back with this thousand yard stare in their eyes like, holy hell. Like, I know, I know. It is just an encyclopedia of awful things.

[B]

And I think that's actually a really excellent kind of term to use, Kate, in encyclopedia because as you know, it starts off with some of the normal kind of trappings of a novel where it's an account, but 120 days, it's divided into four sections and as the days go on, both the level of the depravity and crimes increase and all trappings of writerly niceties fall away. So it eventually, it becomes like a list of torture is what it becomes. And it's not interesting, it's not fun to read, it's just grotesque. The violence reaches a level that it becomes almost cartoonish. The things that are done to these mostly women, but also young men, but mostly women. Horrible, horrible things.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Did he publish it? Like he's sitting in prison and he's writing this stuff, but like how do we know about it? Like who, who looked at that and went, that's the one for me, let's publish that?

[B]

Well, here's the thing. I mean, this is, this is how, how I became interested was I was not interested in sod, not really interested in his writing. I was interested in this particular bit of writing because, yeah, basically he wrote this on this, what probably looks like a roll of toilet paper where he made this 40 foot long scroll by, by gluing pages end to end. And he wrote in minuscule writing on both sides of this thing and would roll it up and hit it and hide it in the stones of his cell.

[A]

Wow, who did, do we know who did publish it? Like how did he get it out? Do we know that? Like, what were his contacts?

[B]

So what ended up happening was this is one of these kind of fantastical objects, right. That ends up kind of going on one of these incredible journeys all over Europe where it was found by a worker after the fall of the Bastille, ended up changing hands being obsession of these Victorian erotica collectors. Yeah. It eventually fell into the hands of this sex researcher in Berlin in the 1930s.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And he published the first kind of abridged version of it, basically framing it as a sex manual to show the diversity of.

[A]

Surely not a sex manual.

[B]

Yeah. Yes. It was framed as scientific.

[A]

Was that Magnus Hirschfeld?

[B]

It was. It was this guy named Ivan Bloke who was a colleague of Hirschfeld, who was a main colleague. And in some ways Bloke helped inspire Hirschfeld and in many ways in this book actually helped to transform blokes assumptions. Because for a long time kind of Bloke saw homosexuality as a disease, as many people did at the time, something that could be cured. And according to him, at least it was through his work, primarily on 120 days of Sodom, that he, he came to see sexuality on a spectrum.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Okay. Now that might be the most beneficial thing to ever come out of this God awful piece of literature. And he shifted his views and ended up saying, no, it's, you know, as I said, like sexuality really is a spectrum now. Now after that it was bought by one of the great supporters of the surrealist movement in Paris and helped kind of fuel the surrealism movement. And then it was stolen. Ended up in this kind of erotica collector in Switzerland for a while. So it ends up traveling all over.

[A]

I'll be back with Joel and Saad after this short break.

[C]

Our HBCUs have a legacy that's straight up golden. And McDonald's is proud to help keep it that way. Since 2021, the Golden Arches has connected with the Thurgood Marshall College fund to provide $1 million in scholarships for students headed to our HBCUs. That kind of cash helps keep bright minds on the yard dreams within reach and the future. Golden. Learn more about McDonald's Black and Positively Golden Scholarships at mcdblackscholars.com Lunch was great,

[A]

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[D]

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[A]

epi and if Creon could help. So Saad is in the Bastille. Was he there when it was attacked by the revolutionaries? Because he lived through the revolution as well.

[B]

He did.

[A]

Which is kind of weird. You thought he would have been the first on the chopping block, the old marquis in prison?

[B]

Well, he almost was. He was transferred out of the Bastille just a few days before the raising. I mean, he would have been, he surely would have been liberated. He would have been freed. He ended up not being liberated then. And so he spent a few more years behind bars. But then, say what you will about this guy, he was wily. So at this point, he looks around, gets a lay of the land and is like, okay, I think I need to change my tune to save my hide. He has kids, his sons end up leaving France. Saad embraces the revolution, calls himself Citizen Saad. He becomes a major part of his local revolutionary department. And apparently one point, he was in charge of the local tribunal where his mother in law and his father in law are brought up to determine whether they should be executed.

[A]

Oh, did he say, yes, they should be?

[B]

He didn't. He wrote after. He's like, I can't bear the idea of this sort of bloodshed and the death of my kids, grandparents. So you can see, okay, fine, maybe there is some humanity there. Now, I don't know if you should use that to say he was a misunderstood no individual.

[A]

Wait, where's his wife in all this? Her husband's in the Bastille.

[B]

By the time he gets out of the Bastille she has now washed her hands of him as well. She's off in a convent. She's like, okay, I'm done.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

No, I'm not. I'm done my stuff.

[A]

Okay, so we have Viva Revolution. He reinvents himself as Citizen Saad.

[B]

And that works for a while, until he goes too far and gets on Robespierre's bad side.

[A]

And he's still publishing at this point? Still publishing his works?

[B]

No, at this point, I think his main artistic creations are his kind of revolutionary zeal. Right. He's just really being like, I need to. So, you know, he really throws himself into this. He reaches a point where he starts, like, railing against religion in general. And at this point, Robespierre is like, okay, this guy's taking it too far. He's a liability. It's time for him to go. So he gets on the bad side of the Architect of the Terror, gets locked up, and eventually he is once again sentenced to death.

[A]

Okay, how does he get out of it this time? Because I know he doesn't get executed.

[B]

Well, that's the thing. Once again, you know, he's on the list. They gather up all the people for the day, they bring them to the guillotine, chop their heads off one at a time. But for whatever reason, Saad is actually not there among these people. It's unclear if the executioner somehow missed Saad when he was collecting the people, or if somebody. If he was able to use whatever money he had left to pay off the right people. But on that day, he avoided death. And then the following day, before anyone could remedy the situation, Robespierre himself was executed.

[A]

Guys, look at this guy. Isn't he.

[B]

I know, I know. He basically avoids the Reign of Terror by, like, a single day.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Okay. Yeah.

[A]

He doesn't get away with it completely, though, because eventually Napoleon comes on the scene.

[B]

So he gets out, and now he's writing again. He's starting to get a bit of reputation. He's writing more horrific books. Justine or Juliet. But then eventually, Napoleon, you know, Napoleon comes back, and Napoleon's not too fond of this guy. So after some of the more calmer, more successful kind of years of his life, he's locked away again. This time, it's more in the frame of mental asylums. And that's kind of where he spends the rest of his days for a while. He ends up running the theater department. One of these. One of the asylums, which became the inspiration for Quills, right? Because that's about him.

[A]

It's where it's set, isn't it? In the lunatic asylum of Charenton.

[B]

Exactly. And so apparently for Wilde, the cream of society would travel out of Paris to see these theatrical performances put on by people who were at that point considered certifiably insane.

[A]

And he. So he dies, dies of old age. What does he die of?

[B]

Yes, amazingly, he outlives the reign of the King and the Reign of Terror and even Napoleon's empire and you know, ends up passing away in 1814. So talk about being an escape artist.

[A]

Yeah. He dies when he's imprisoned in the, in the asylum, right?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

There's a weird story about him being dug up, isn't there? Or his skull or something?

[B]

Yes. According to his written testament, he said he wanted his grave to be hidden away in the forest and have acorns scattered of it so that his. All memory of him would be washed away. It's hard. I don't know. This guy had a very high esteem for himself. So I don't know how much of that was.

[A]

Doesn't sound like something he'd do, does it?

[B]

Yes, but of course this doesn't happen. He's buried in the asylum cemetery. A few years later, his bones were dug up and the phrenologist got a hold of his skull and made all sorts of completely varying pronouncements about what his skull suggested about him. And that was really the beginning of kind of the myth of Saad. There had already been insane rumors during his lifetime, but all of a sudden this individual began to really assume these larger than life reputation.

[A]

So let's talk then just to bring it home about what his legacy is. Because this is something that's very complex about Saad, because you can't. His history, his personal history, the things that he did are beyond horrendous if you can try and separate the art from the artist. And a lot of people have tried to do, do it to try and understand this body of work that we've been left with. There are people that say that it's out now, it's just obscenities and that it's the worst kind of violent pornography and we should. It should just be burnt. And it was banned for a long time. But there have been people, quite notable people that have tried to defend Saad as well. Yes.

[B]

And I think that's part, I mean, I'm curious, okay, when, when you've had your students had to read this, how many have actually been able to get through it?

[A]

Not many.

[B]

Exactly. Right. So in some ways I think a lot of his work, especially really horrible things like 120 Days of Sodom, which is this massive and really kind of taxing read, ends up becoming this kind of cipher. Right. This kind of where. Where it's almost more the reputation or. Or people reading, taking bits and pieces and. And then interpreting it in a way that serves them.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that can be. That, at times, I think, has been productive, constructive, as I said, like during the flourishing of the sexual revolution and really pioneering sex research in Berlin before the rise of the Nazis in the 20s and early 30s, I think some of Saad's work was actually productively used, as I said, to, like, illustrate. Okay. Like, sexuality really does exist and a

[A]

variety of forms and always has.

[B]

Yes. And surrealists, thanks in part to the scroll being kind of trotted out at a lot of their. Their parties in Paris, kind of used it also as inspiration, this idea of the sheer nihilism of it, to just help them to rail against and deconstruct all of the kind of societal structures that. That they were dead set on. On a Polish singer.

[A]

Some prominent feminist scholars, you'd think they would be first in line to chuck it in the bin, wouldn't you? But Simone de Beauvoir wrote Must We Burn Sad. Anda Carter wrote the Sadian Woman. Both of them have defended his work.

[B]

And I think one of the reasons is that in some of his works, in kind of Justine and Juliet, the protagonists, if you want to call them that, are women. And I think especially some of his later writing, these women are just as corrupt and despicable as his male characters.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And yet they also have this level of power and autonomy. Right. How? I mean, they were in his works, engaging in black mass orgies at the Vatican, but at least they were making the choice to do it. And in some of his writings, he. He seems to even be supportive of the concept of abortion Right now. I think all of this has to be couched in kind of the overall framing of that. Like when he was writing about the idea that abortions should be legal. The question is, was it more part of his extreme views of being able to abuse or hurt anyone he so chooses, rather than some kind of proto feminism? I mean, this stuff is so extreme that there's this natural tendency to try to explain it, try to give some reasoning, that there has to be some ulterior motive, that there has to be some larger theme driving this. Yeah.

[A]

It's not porn, I don't think. I think. I think you'd struggle to call that pornography. It doesn't operate as pornography. It's. I mean, you know, there might be like a handful of people out there that, you know, that's their thing. But I wouldn't have called that pornography.

[B]

I think most people would assume it's pornography and at times, no, it's been framed as like the original 50 shades of gray. But that's a. But that is, to me, like. Like a woeful misreading or. Or not a misreading because.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Once again, clearly people aren't reading this stuff. Yeah, it is to me. It's not about. As we talked about. It's not about. It's not really about pleasure. It is about power.

[A]

Yeah. Unaccess.

[B]

And if I may, I wrote this book a few years ago, so I haven't been engaged in it that much since, and. But it came up fairly recently for me in this kind of powerful way. And this comes back to this concept of power where I'm working at this investigative news outlet here in the States. It's called the Lever. And we focus on corruption, political as well as corporate corruption. And we, like many outlets here and in the UK have been focused on the Epstein files. Yeah. There's millions of records and I've had some of my reporters spend time on it. One of them came back to me and essentially was. Is just like, hey, I. I need a break. Just reading through these accounts. It's having an impact on me.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And that reminded me, there is wonderful professor in London named Will McMorin who did the most recent translation 1 in 120 days of Sodom. It's a part of, I think, the Oxford Classics, where he wrote blogs about. About the experience as he was doing it. And there was a blog post he wrote where going through 120 days of Sodom, which is this, as we talked about this, becomes this dry account of just rich people doing the worst things imaginable to defenseless young people. Right. We're seeing the parallel where he wrote. At times I. I feel like instead of me working on the text, the text is working on me. So I saw this parallel right between the Epstein files, which no one would say that's sexy or romantic. That is a pure accounting of men in power.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Just having utter freedom to do whatever they want. And that's exactly what Saad wrote.

[A]

Yeah. And what he did as well, in several cases. Yeah. I mean, it's. You're right, the parallels there, that they're quite striking. It's that this is. This has been happening for a long time. Unfettered power, closed circles, acting with impunity, thinking that they can get away with whatever they want to. That's been, that has been documented for a very long time and certainly in the work. Assad Joel, you, I don't know if you've been fun to talk to, but you've certainly been incredible. Thank you so much. If people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you?

[B]

I said I'm spending most of my time helping run this news outlook called the Lever. Focused a lot on corruption here in this here in the States. As I said, unfortunately, there are a lot of parallels between Saad's behavior, a lot of the people in power here in this country right now. So I recommend people to check that out. The book that I wrote about this, the Curse of the Marquis de Sade, I tried to make it as engaging as possible. It's part of biography of Saad. It's part the kind of blow by blow of the incredible journey of the scroll. And then part is actually how it fell into the largest pon d scheme in French history just a few years ago. So the book's also an accounting of this, of this really incredible scam involving the rare book market in France. So hopefully it's more of a page turner than, say, reading 120 Days of Sodom. I can't say for sure, but I definitely tried to make it more engaging.

[A]

Just give that one a skip, everyone. Honestly, it's not worth your time. Read Joel's book instead. You have been fabulous. Thank you so much for coming by to talk to us.

[B]

Well, thank you for asking such wonderful questions. You. You put me on my toes. Like I said, it's been a few years. It's good to grill me on these things.

[A]

Thank you for listening and thank you so much for joining me. And if you like what you heard, well, get help. That's what I would say. But also, don't forget to like, review and follow along whatever it is you get. Your podcasts coming up. We're going to meet the legendary Greek poet Sappho and head inside the brothels of Imperial Russia. And if you'd like us to explore a subject, or if you want to say hello, then you can email [e-mail] this podcast was edited by Hannah Feodorov and produced by Sophie G. The senior producer was Freddie Chick. Join me again Betwixt the Sheets the History of Sex Scandal in Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound,

[C]

Our HBCUs have a legacy that's straight up golden, and McDonald's is proud to help keep it. Since 2021, the Golden Arches has connected with the Thurgood Marshall College fund to provide $1 million in scholarships for students headed to our HBCUs. That kind of cash helps keep bright minds on the yard dreams within reach and the future golden. Learn more about McDonald's Black and Positively Golden Scholarships at mcdblackscholars.com.