The Marquis de Sade and Courtly Love - Eighteenth

The Marquis de Sade
and Courtly Love
Lorna Berman
Ii n'y a peut-etre pas autant de rapport que 1'on pourrait se I'imaginer
entre l' espritet Ie cceur ... 1'un des deux peutetre tres corrompu, quoiqu'il
reste ou qu'il soit encore de grandes vertus dans l' autre. l
marquis de Sade
I
t may come as a surprise to some readers to find the name of Sade linked
with the concept of courtly love. Courtly love evokes images of ideal
romantic love, while the name of Sade has come to suggest sexual orgies
and perversions. But Sade had many points in common with the twelfthcentury troubadours from whose lyrics our conception of courtly love
derives. 2 First, the troubadours lived and wrote in Provence, the southern
region of France with which Sade had close connections. Second, the
spirit of courtly love, called fin' amors in the poetry of the troubadours,
is reflected in different ways throughout the works of Sade. Third, the
sexual desire expressed in the works of the troubadours is as intense as it
is in those of Sade. Last, and perhaps most important, both Sade and the
troubadours make a close and unique association between sexual desire
1 Donatien Alphonse Fran90is, marquis de Sade, "Sur les Troubadours et reftexion subsequente de
moi" (1770), Le Quatrihne Cahier des Ilotes ou refiexiolls extraites de Illes lectures ou journies
par elles (12 juin-2I aofit), reproduced by G. Lely in Tel Quel8I (1979), 102. References to this
note appear as Troubadours.
2 The term "amour courtois" is believed to have been coined by Gaston Paris in 1883. It connotes
an ideal love, but its meaning has evolved somewhat with time, referring to the pure fill' alllors of
the troubadours, the chivalric bon alllor of the trouveres of northern France, the more spiritualized
love of Petrarch, Dante, and Cervantes, and the romantic love of today. Jean Frappier has given a
lucid and nuanced account of courtly love in AlIlour courtois et table ronde (Geneve: Droz, 1973).
ElGHTEENTH-CENTUR Y FICTION, Volume 11, Number3, April 1999
286 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
and moral behaviour; sexual desire is represented in both as generating
moral acts-but with opposite effects. Sexual desire ennobles in the lyrics
of the troubadours; it corrupts in the works of Sade-an anomaly addressed
in the following pages.
Sade was descended through his father from an ancient noble family of
Provence, where he spent the formative years of his childhood (from the
age offour to ten), receiving his primary education from his uncle, l'abbe
de Sade d'Ebreuil, and becoming familiar with the history and literature
of the area. On his father's death, he inherited property in Provence, which
became one of his main sources of revenue. He remained attached to this
region throughout his life, and was particularly fond of his mansion near
the village of La Coste, which constituted a second residence for him and a
refuge from police when he was in trouble. Altogether, he made ten visits
to Provence between 1763 and 1778 and expected to end his days there:
"J'y finirai vraisemblablement mes jours," he wrote in a letter. "J' ai encore
pour quatre ans d'ouvrage a Paris, au bout desquels, si Dieu me prete vie,
il est bien sur que j'irai mourir a Saumane."3
The abbe de Sade, his uncle and teacher, was the noted author of a life of
Petrarch, Memoires pour fa vie de Fran(,:ois Fetrarque tires de ses (Euvres
et des auteurs contemporains (1764), and of a work on the troubadours
and French poets of the Middle Ages, and he transmitted his interest in the
medieval period to his nephew. "Ie suis fou de l'antiquite," the marquis
wrote in a letter to his wife in February 1784. "Les pieces de chevalerie
me transportent."4
Laure de Sade, one of Sade's ancestors, was believed to have been the
famous Laura ofPetrarch's poems, and the abbe went to some lengths in the
Memoires to conoborate the identity of Laura as his ancestor. Throughout
his life, the marquis de Sade took pride in the connection with the great
poet of ideal love, whom he greatly admired, writing in a letter to his
wife (17 February 1779) of his enthusiasm for Petrarch and his dreams
of Laura: "Ie Ie lis avec un plaisir, une avidite qui ne peut se comparer a
rien ... Comme cet ouvrage est bien fait! ... Laure me tourne la tete; j'en
suis comme un enfant; je la lis tout Ie jour, et la nuit j' en songe." He then
3 Henri FauviIle, La Coste, Sade en Provence (Aix-en-Provence: Edisud, 1984), p. 197.
4 See Maurice Lever, Donatien Alphonse Fran,ois, marquis de Sade (Paris: Librairie Artheme
Fayard, 1991), p. 65; LetfJ'es et melanges litteraires, ed. Georges Daumas (Paris: Broderie, 1980),
p.182.
SADE AND COURTLY LOVE 287
recounts a dream in which Laura beckons him to join her: "Pourquoi gemistu sur la terre? Plus de maux, plus de chagrins, plus de trouble dans l' espace
immense que j'habite. Aie Ie courage de m'y suivre. A ces mots, je me suis
prosterne a ses pieds, je lui ai dit '0 rna Mere.''' In 1793, concerned that
the remains of Laure and certain papers relative to her might be destroyed
if the church where she was buried were demolished during the turbulence
of the revolutionary period, he wrote to his lawyer suggesting that they
be removed to an inviolable asylum. 5 In his biography DonatienAlphonse
Fran(;ois, marquis de Sade, M. Lever imagines the abbe de Sade and his
young nephew going for walks in the countryside near Avignon and paying
homage to the memory of Laura and Petrarch: "A un quart de lieue, ils
sacrifient quelque fois au culte de Laure et Petrarque, dont d' abbe compose
l'histoire. C' est ici dans une petite maison entouree de jardins que Ie poete
vint chercher refuge loin des tracas d' Avignon."6
Sade was familiar with the language of Provence and exchanged letters
in Proven<;al for a period of time (1778-81) with a childhood friend, MIle
de Rousset. He was also familiar with the literature of courtly love as well as
with contemporary theories about it. While imprisoned in the Vincennes
dungeon, he read the Histoire litteraire des Troubadours by La Curne
de Sainte-Palaye, edited by I'abbe Millot.7 Impressed with the extracts
from their works included by Millot, he noted in his Quatrieme Cahier
the similarity of this poetry to that of the great fourteenth-century Italian
poets, Petrarch in particular, and he was enthusiastic about the refinement
of their poetry and thought:
On fait en lisant leurs vel'S et l'extrait de leurs ouvrages recueilli d'une maniere
egalement savante et agreable par M. I' abbe MiHot, une remarque assez singuliere.
C' est que tout ce qui se distingue des poetes italiens dans Ie quatorzieme siec1e,
et Petrarque lui-meme, semble n'avoir ete que les echos de ces [rimeurs] naIfs,
dont on s'apergoit aisement qu'ils possedaient les ouvrages.... Au reste, que de
delicatesse et de naIvete dans certains ouvrages de ces troubadours! ... AvouonsIe, nous avons aujourd'hui plus de raffinement dans nos pensees, mais avons-nous
autant de naIvete et de delicatesse. (Troubadours, p. 102.)
He preferred "Ie beau simple" of the troubadours to the deceiving refinements of periods of decadence, in which "Ie vraiment bon," "Ie vraiment
5 Donatien Alphonse Fran~ois, marquis de Sade, L'Aigle, Mademoiselle, Letfl'es (Paris: Editions
Georges Artigues, 1949), pp. 24-25; Paul Bourdin, Correspondallce illedite dumarquis de Sade,
de ses proches et de ses familiers (Paris: Librairie de France, 1929), p. 377.
6 Lever, p. 67.
7 La Cume de Sainte-Palaye, Histoire litteraire des Troubadours, ed. l'abbe Millot, 3 vols (Paris,
1774; Geneve: Slatkine Reprints, 1967).
288 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
honnete," is no longer able to touch us. Sade added that it would be
wrong, however, to draw from this any conclusions with respect to the
morals of the time, since they were already extremely corrupt: "II serait injuste pourtant de tirer de Hl une consequence pour les m~urs. Elles etaient
deja au dernier degre de corruption, meme dans cette enfance du genie"
(Troubadours, p. 102). Indeed, Sade may very well have derived the idea
of the monastery brothel in the second volume of La Nouvelle Justine from
an anecdote recounted by Sainte-Palaye about the first known troUbadour,
Guillaume IX, comte de Poitou. A confirmed libertine, Guillaume constructed "une maison de debauche" in the form of a monastery, "ou l' on
devait jouer la vie monastique, et assaisonner, par cette espece d'impi6te,
les desordres de la prostitution."8
In his essay on the novel, Idee sur les Romans, in which he outlines the
history of the novel from earliest times, Sade, after discussing the early
novels of chivalry, refers in particular to the influence of the troubadours:
"Les troubadours parurent ensuite et quoiqu'on doive les regarder plutot
comme des poetes que comme des romanciers, la multitude des jolis contes
qu'ils composerent en prose, leur obtiennent cependant, avec juste raison,
une place parmi les ecrivains dont nous parlons." It was they who inspired and influenced the great Italian writers: "Ce fut a l' ecole de nos
troubadours que Dante, Boccace, Tassoni et meme un peu Petrarque, esquisserent leurs compositions." On one occasion Sade actually referred
to himself as a Provenqal troubadour; in his Catalogue raisonne (October 1788), he entitled his collection of short stories Contes et fabliaux du
xvme par un troubadour provent;;af.9
Sade's familiarity with the history and poetry of the troubadours, as
well as with the novels of chivalry, is reflected in the texts of his novels,
where, far example, the elevation of women among the Gauls in the age
of chivalry is discussed by characters in several passages. Gernande, in
a long discourse on women in Justine ou les Malheurs de la Vertu, and
Belmar, in an equally long discourse on love in Histoire de Juliette ou
les Prosperites du Vice, attribute the high respect for women in society to
their custom of prophesying and telling fattunes. It is certain, says Belmor,
"que notre esprit de galanterie chevaleresque ... vient de l'ancien respect
que nos ancetres avaient autrefois pour les femmes, en raison du metier
8 Sainte-PaIaye, 1:4.
9 Donatien Alphonse Franc;:ois, marquis de Sade, Les Crimes de t' amour (Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert,
1955), pp. 17-18. References to this edition appear as CA. See Maurice Heine, Le Marquis de
Sade, ed. with preface by Gilbert Lely (Paris: GaIlimard, 1950), p. 40.
SADE AND COURTLY LOVE 289
de prophetes qu'elles exen;aient dans les villes et dans les campagnes."10
This is the explanation given by Sainte-Palaye in Histoire litteraire des
Troubadours and by Simon Pelloutier in Histoire des Celtes, a work with
which Sade was also familiar and which he quoted frequently.][
Moreover, Sade's life and works as a whole reflect the striving for
freedom and moral independence characteristic of the south ofFrance in the
twelfth century, as described by M. Lazar: "C'est particulierement dans les
cours meridionales que Ie 'libertinage' avait pu s' epanouir et que les m~urs
etaient les plus relikhees. II y a une exaltation de la liberte individuelle,
une affirmation de l'independance morale de l'homme."12 Sade was thus
attached to Provence through his ancestry, education, personal experience,
and general striving for freedom and moral independence. So strong was
his attachment that at least two writers have devoted complete studies to
it-Henri Fauville in La Coste, Sade en Provence (1984) and Solange
Lambergeon in Un Amour de Sade: La Provence (1990).
The concept of pure love, the fin' amors expressed in the lyrics of the
Proven~al troubadours, is also reflected throughout Sade's works and sometimes in the most unlikely contexts and characters. In his Avertissement
(the first version of Idee sur les romans), he refers to a time of pure love in
which the word "love" was scarcely spoken, "ces siecles vertueux et pleins
de candeur, ou Ie seul mot d'amour se pronon~ait a peine" (CA, 1:257).
And in his Quatrieme Cahier, Sade admires the complete devotion and fidelity expressed by a mid-twelfth-century troubadour, Pierre Roger, to his
beloved:
Et quel est Ie poete du siecle qui ne se ferait pas honneur d' avoir pense et d' avail'
dit Ie premier: "La fidelite qu' on doit asa dame consiste alui tout dire et ane rien
dire d'elle"; et un autre, "Quand on aime bien, eut-on entendu, eut-on vu quelque
chose au desavantage de son arnie, on ne doit croire ni ses meilles, ni ses yeux."
(TlVubadours, p. 102)
10 Donatien Alphonse Fran90is, marquis de Sade, Justille ouies mailzeurs de ia vatu, in Sade, (Euvres
(Paris: Club fran9ais du livre, 1953), pp. 383-84; Histoire de Juliette ou ies Prosperites du Vice
(Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1949),5 vols, 3:122. References to this edition appear as Juliette.
11 H.-U. Seifert, Sade, Leser lIIzdAutor (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1983), p. 363.
12 Moshe Lazar, Amour courtois etfill' alllors dalls ia litterature du Xll e siecle (Paris: Klincksieck,
1964), p. 11.
290 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
This passage appears in the first volume of the Histoire litteraire des
Troubadours. It is revealing to read the entire paragraph that contains the
quotation, for it recalls remarks and situations in Sade's novels. In the
passage, Sainte-Palaye describes the chansons written by Pierre Roger
in praise of his benefactress, the vicomtesse de Narbonne, in which Love,
personified in one of the chansons, scolds jealous lovers for their unseemly
behaviour:
Amans insenses, trop d'empressement aupres de vos amies vous tourmente, vous
rend malheureux. Les querelles que vous leur faites, I'habitude de Ies epier avec
une curiosite jalouse, vous font devenir insupportables. Ce n' est pas Iii de l' amour.
Quand on aime bien, eut-on entendu, eut-on vu quelque chose au desavantage de
son amie, on ne doit croire ni ses oreilles ni ses yeux. 13
A similar sentiment of total devotion and generosity of spirit is expressed
often in Sade's works, though sometimes with mockery, in both virtuous
and vicious characters, and in heterosexual and homosexual relationships.
On occasion, generosity of spirit is so widened in its application as, ironically, to undermine fidelity. In Aline et Valcour, for example, when Leonore,
one of the heroines, says she does not wish to be unfaithful to her husband, her friend Clementine responds that if her husband really loved her,
he would excuse her: "Un epoux vraiment aimable etjuste, jouit bien plus
des voluptes que sa femme goute que des sacrifices qu'elle lui fait."14 And
later, in a general discussion of the attitudes of husbands towards their
wives, she goes even further to affirm that a husband who truly loved his
wife would encourage her to seek pleasures with others, if he were not sure
of his ability to satisfy her (AV, 3:418).
In a similar but mocking vein, the author of the instructions to women admitted to the Society for the Friends of Crime in Histoire de Juliette
questions the necessity of fidelity in a woman whose husband is truly generous: "Et d'ailleurs, a quoi sert la fid6lite a une femme? Si son homme
l' aime veritablement il doit etre assez delicat pour tolerer toutes ses faiblesses et pour partager meme ideaIement les jouissances qu' elIe se procure"
(Juliette, 3:34). And in La Philosophie dans le Boudoir, Mme de St Ange
affirms: "II n'y a point d'homme delicat qui ne jouisse au spectacle du bonheur de la personne qu' il adore."15 The expression of this generosity of spirit
13 Sainte-Palaye, 1:105-6.
14 Donatien Alphonse Franyois, marquis de Sade, Aline et Valcollr Ollie rolllan philosophiqlle (Paris:
Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1956),4 vols, 3:274. References to this edition appear as AV.
15 Donatien Alphonse Franyois, marquis de Sade, LaPhiiosophie dans Ie bOlldoir (Paris: Jean-Jacques
Pauvert, 1953), p. 72. References to this edition appear as Phil.
SADE AND COURTLY LOVE 291
is perhaps most sincere among lesbians in Sade's novels. In Aline et Valcour, Dona Cortilla, a member of a Manichaean band whom Leonore
encounters in one of her adventures, asks no return for her love. Likewise, la Durand in Histoire de Juliette refuses to take money from Juliette
for saving her life: "Je ne veux pas etre payee d'un service rendu par mon
cocur" (Juliette, 5: 160). A little later she refuses to take her part of the
booty they have stolen: "Je veux que tu prisses tout; j'ai plus de plaisir
a te voir au dernier degre de I'opulence qu'a m'enrichir moi-meme" (Juliette, 5:193). Serving a beloved without reward was a commonplace of
courtly love.
We find, then, echoes of the spiritual elements of courtly love in Sade's
work. But what was the relationship of this love with sexual desire? The
works ofSade differ somewhat from those ofthe troubadours in this respect.
I shall first consider the relationship between love and sexual desire in the
Proven~al troubadours.
Because of the moral idealism inherent in the poetry of the Proven~al
troubadours, many critics have associated courtly love with the movements
of religious mysticism-Christian mysticism and the Manichaeism of the
Cathars-which were prevalent at the time. 16 Other critics-E. Gilson, A.
Denomy, R. Nelli, J. Frappier, M. Lazar-have questioned this association,
pointing out that the courtly love praised and exalted in troubadour poetry
was essentially physical and sensual in nature. In its purest form, it eschews
physical possession, but, writes Denomy in The Heresy of Courtly Love,
"Far from being pure in the accepted sense of disinterested, pure love is
sensual, carnal and selfish in that it allows, approves and encourages all that
fans and provokes desire." Nelli, in his exhaustive study of cOUltly love,
L'Erotique des Troubadours, emphasizes the physical basis of courtly love
in the poetry of the troubadours: "Pour eux la valeur d'amour s'incarne
dans une femme, parfois inaccessible, mais toujours de chair, I'amour Ie
plus idealise a pour gage Ie desir charnel et il commence a l' admiration
pour Ie beau corps de la dame terrienne."17
Lazar goes so far as to contend that "Ie desir sensuel et erotique" was
the most important element of the conception of love of the troubadours
16 See Lazar; see also R. Boase, The Origin and Meaning of COllrtly Love (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1977).
17 Alexander Denomy, The Heresy of COllrtly Love (New York: D.S. McMullen, 1947), p. 25; Rene
Nelli, L'Erotiqlle des Troubadollrs, 2 vols (Paris: Union Generale d'Editions, 1974), 1:222.
292 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
and may have sometimes involved physical possession. Most of the songs
of Bernart de Ventadorn (one of the most famous of the troubadours)
"tourne autour de cette idee fixe: Ie corps nu de la dame." And Lazar
devotes a chapter to "l'imagerie erotique de la fin' amors," pointing out
the frequency in troubadour lytics of terms such as estrenhar (embrace),
desliar, despoliar (undress),jazar (sleep with),jauzir (enjoy),Jaire-lo (do
it). 18
The expression of sexual desire in troubadour lyrics is, moreover, extremely intense. Guiraut de BorneH, for example, laments in one of his
lytics that "excessive desire, excessive love and long yearning attack him,
and overdaring, recklessness and impropriety make him pay court to that
which does not match his deserving":
Era.m combat sobre-volers
E sobr' amars e loncs dezirs;
E fa.m chassar sobr' enardirs
E foleiars e no-devers
So que no tanh a rna valor.
Bernart de Ventadorn has placed in love, he says, "his heart, body, intelligence, mind, strength and ability. He is drawn so much towards love that
he cannot pay attention to anything else. He sighs from his heart and weeps
from his eyes because he loves so much that he is injured by it":
Cor e cars e saber e sen
e fors' e poder i ai mes;
si.m tira vas amor 10 fres
que vas autra part nO.m aten.
del cor sospir e dels olhs plOf,
car tan I' am eu, per que i ai dan. 19
For Cercamon, "nothing is so difficult to obtain as what he desires and
there is nothing that he desires as much as what he cannot obtain":
Ni res tan greu no.s covertis
com fai so qu'ieu vau deziran,
ni tal enveja nO.m fai res
cum fai so qu'ieu non pose aver. 20
18 Lazar, pp. 72-74, 119; see also Frappier, pp. 81- 83.
19 Bernard O'Donoghue, The Courtly Love n'aditioll (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
1982), pp. 112-13, 128.
20 Lazar, p. 62.
SADE AND COURTLY LOVE 293
Most often, as indicated in the above quotation, sexual desire in courtly
love remains unappeased, for it is usually addressed to a married woman
of superior social status. Thus Guiraut de Borneil explains that "he sighs,
complains, and weeps because joy does not help him, for he is the one who
loves best and most fully, yet he does not embrace or hold or kiss":
Per qu'eu sospir e planh e plor?
Car Jois nO.m val ni nO.m socor;
Qu'eu sui aquel c'am melhs e mais
E no manei, ni tenh, ni bais.
But the troubadours, despite extreme suffering, usually continue to love.
Thus Bernart de Ventadorn "cannot keep from loving her from whom he
will never have benefit; she has taken from him his heart, herself, and the
whole world. And when she took herself from him, she left him nothing
but desiring and a longing heart":
Car eu d' amar nO.m pose tener
Celeis don ja pro non aurai.
Tout m' a man cor e tout m' a me,
E se mezeis e tot 10 man,
E can se.m talc, nO.m laisset re
Mas dezirer e cor volon.
The lover in most cases remains faithful and true. If, "in his madness, he
wishes for too much," says Guiraut de Borneil in the ending of the poem
above, "his reason may appear rather slight, but he remains faithful and
true":
E s'eu volh trop per rna falor,
Mas sens en par alques savais,
Mas eu remanh tis e verais.
Moreover, in spite of the extreme pain they suffer, troubadours still prefer
their state of unsatiated desire to the deadening state of ennui, which is
the fate of the person who does not love. "That person is certainly dead,"
asserts Bernart de Ventadorn, "who does not feel in his hemi some sweet
taste of love":
Ben es mortz qui d' amor no sen
al cor cal que dousa sabor. 21
The foregoing describes the main features of fin' amors in the classical
period (1070-1170), but there was also in troubadour poetry a negative
21 O'Donoghue, pp. 128-29, 116-17, 128-29, 112-13.
294 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
strain, a counter-text, as Pierre Bec describes it in his work Burlesque et
obscenite chez les Troubadours, which took the form of "poemes sauvages,"
the term used by Nelli, whom Bec quotes. These were humorous or ironic
parodies of the courtly love ideal that were often misogynist, scatalogical,
and obscene. They were marginally present in the grand period of lyrical
troubadour poetry, but could be found throughout the period, in the poems
of Guillaume IX, the first ofthe great Proven9allyrical poets ofjin' amors,
and in the later work of some of the best-known troubadours. This negative vein increased in troubadour poetry towards the end of the twelfth
century and, in the thirteenth century, ended "dans l' exasperation verbale
et crepusculaire de son dernier representant."22
Jean-Charles Huchet has analysed at length these two strains in
troubadour poetry, particularly that of Guillaume IX where "une veine
cmment naturaliste" coexisted with "une veine nettement idealiste." He
attributes the negative vein to a fundamental sexual impasse-the impossibility of complete sexual union between the male and female-and
he suggests that the two strains are sides of the same coin: "Cette fausse
opposition ... ne souligne-t-elle pas que 'feminisme' et misogynie ne sont
chez l'homme que deux modalites d'un meme proces, qui vise a Ie mettre
a l'abri de la question sur la sexualite dont la femme est porteuse?";
"Chez l'homme, rien ne vient suppleer la carence d'union sexuelle, sauf
l'invective misogyne ou l'adoration mystique." It was only by making the
lady more distant, or the love more spiritual, that the sexual impasse was
resolved in some of the later troubadours and poets of courtly love. 23
Thus courtly love in the troubadour lyrics consists in intense sexual
desire, usually unsatiated and therefore ever-increasing, but almost always
faithful and true. Furthermore, this state of unappeased desire, though
extremely painful, is considered absolutely necessary for a w011hwhile
life. A counter-strain is also found amongst the troubadours, a "fin' amors
negativisee," as Bec puts it. 24
As is well known, intense sexual desire is also often expressed in the works
of Sade, although greater emphasis is placed on the effects of its frustration.
22 Pierre Bee, Burlesque et ObSCetlite chez les Troubadours: Ie contre-texte au Moyen Age (Paris:
Editions Stock, 1984), p. 21. See also Simon Gaunt, Troubadours and Irony (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989).
23 Jean-Charles Huehet, L'Amour discourtois (Toulouse: Editions Prival, 1987), pp. 64-65, 107, 108,
143,175.
24 Bee, p. 245.
SADE AND COURTLY LOVE 295
Whereas the troubadours usually affirmed their continued fidelity to their
beloved, despite her refusals and the consequent pain of their frustrated
desire, Sade and the characters of his novels dwell on the dire consequences
of frustrating desire. Thus Sade writes from prison in 1783:
Vous avez imagine faire merveille, je Ie parierais, en me reduisant aune abstinence
atrace sur Ie peche de Ia chair. Et bien, vous vous etes trompes, vous avez echauffe
rna tete, vous m'avez fait former des fantOmes qu'il faudra que je realise. 25
In La Philosophie dans le Boudoir, the author of the political pamphlet,
discussing sexual passion, writes: "Aucune passion n' a plus besoin de toute
l'extension de la liberte que celle-Ia" (p. 225). Sexual desire is therefore
usually indulged in Sade's works, leading, however, to satiety, a recurring
phenomenon and problem among Sade's characters. As Raphael expresses
it in Les Infortunes de la vertu: "II suffit que j'aie passe la nuit avec une
fille pour en desirer Ie matin une nouvelle; rien n'est insatiable comme nos
gouts." And satiety, says Curval in Les Cent Vingt Journees de Sodome,
brings about disgust and unhappiness: "Ce degout que nous eprouvons
alors n'est que Ie sentiment d'une arne rassassiee a qui Ie bonheur deplait
parce qu'il vient de la fatiguer."26 This is why happiness consists in desire
rather than enjoyment, affirms Durcet: "Ce n'est pas dans la jouissance
que consiste Ie bonheur, c'est dans Ie desir, c'est a briser les freins qu'on
oppose a ce desir" (CVJ, 2:50).
The maintenance of a state of desire is thus considered essential in
Sade's works, as it is in that of the troubadours. Indeed, Sade's characters
go to extreme lengths to reawaken it constantly, thus indulging in the gross
perversions that are a distinguishing feature of his most famous novels. The
apparent contradiction between the exalted expression of love by Sade's
characters and their sexual behaviour disappears, however, for they make
a clear distinction between sexual love and moral love, a distinction that
reflects the idealism discussed above. Thus, la Duvergier, the procuress
who hires Juliette at the beginning of her adventures, tells her:
II y a deux fa~ons d'aimer un homme: I'amour moral et I'amour physique. Une
femme peut idoliitrer moralement son amant ou son epoux, et aimer physiquement
et momentanement Ie jeune homme qui lui fait Ia cour... , L' amant payeur, ou
I' epoux, doivent etre trap judicieux alors pour exiger de l' objet de leur tendresse
25 Aigle, pp. 104-5.
26 Donatien Alphonse Fran~ois, marquis de Sade, Les Infortunes de la vertu (Paris: Editions du Point
du Jour, 1946), p. 159; Les Cent Vingt JouI"Ilifes de Sodollle, 3 vols (Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert,
1953),1:130. References to this edition appear as CVJ.
296 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
un creur qu'ils doivent bien savoir impayable; ils ont trap de raison pour ne pas
sentir qu' on n'achete point les sentiments de l'ame. (Juliette, 1: 175-76)
Noirceuil puts it more precisely, implying that love and physical enjoyment
are mutually exclusive:
C'est une chose tres differente que d'aimer et que de jouir, et que non seulement
il n'est pas necessaire d'aimer pour jouir, mais qu'il suffit meme de jouir pour ne
pas aimer. (Juliette, 2:61)
The distinction between sexual enjoyment and love is also expressed in
La Nouvelle Justine, where Clement, one of the monks in the monastery
where Justine is held captive, asserts:
C' est une chose tres differente que d' aimer ou que de jouir; la preuve en est qu' on
aime tous les jours sans jouir, et qu' on jouit encore plus souvent sans aimer.
And Jerome, another monk, goes so far as to say that it is impossible for
him to understand that one could love the object of one's enjoyments:
J' ai joui de beaucoup d' objets dans ma vie; mais je puis certifier que pas un ne fut
cher a mon creur; il m'est meme impossible de comprendre qu'on puisse aimer
l'objet dont onjouit,27
Ghigi, the corrupt head of the internal police of Rome in Histoire de
Juliette, goes still further, expressing contempt for the physical union of
bodies:
Ie n'ai jamais em que de la jonction de deux corps puisse jamis resulter cene de
deux creurs; je vois a cette jonction physique de grands motifs de mepris ... de
degout, mais pas un seul d'amour. (Juliette, 4:43)
It is apparent that the ideal of perfect physical and spiritual communion
between a man and a woman is for the most part considered impossible in
Sade's works-hence the sharp distinction he makes between sexual and
moral love, and the frequent expression of physical violence and contempt
for the body. This is what distinguishes the erotic scenes in Sade from those
current in eighteenth-century literature, as Pierre Klossowski remarks: "Les
scenes erotiques elles-memes se distinguent du genre litteraire courant a
son epoque par la haine du corps et l'impatience que suscitent en ses heros
les patients et patientes sur lesquels ils s' acharnent."28
Though the possibility or hope of an ideal physical and spiritual love
between man and woman is implicit in most troubadour poetry of the
27 Donatien Alphonse Fran(,:ois, marquis de Sade, La Nouvelle Justine au les malheurs de la vertu, 2
vols (Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1953),2:149, 186.
28 Piene Klossowski, Sade, man proehain (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1947), p. 101.
SADE AND COURTLY LOVE 297
classical period, there is also, as we have seen, a negative strain. It is
revealing that the sexual impasse to which Huchet attributes the negative
strain (in the works of Guillaume IX in particular) resembles that expressed
in Sade's work, and has also been compared by Rene de Ceccatty to that
found in Petrarch's poetry. Discussing expressions of love in Sade and in
Petrarch, Ceccatty brings out the contradiction between sex and the heart
found in both: "II y a une contradiction entre Ie sexe et Ie c~ur .... Le sexe
ne permet pas d'atteindre l'autre. Le sexe n'est pas Ie langage de l'amour.
L' attrait physique est un obstacle a la fusion amoureuse."29
Intense sexual desire-expressed both in Sade's works and in the lyrics
of the troubadours-is usually unfulfilled in the latter and almost always
satisfied in the former, but the importance of maintaining a psychological state of desire is stressed in both. Sexual desire is the essence of
love in troubadour poetry, while a sharp distinction is made between love
and sexual desire in Sade. Though the relationship between sexual desire and love in Sade's works is negative in comparison with its expression
in troubadour poetry, Sade and the troubadours have in common a strong
preoccupation with morality, and they both make a close and unique association between sexual desire and moral behaviour-sexual desire generates
moral behaviour. This is a phenomenon different and apart from most other
norms of morality, including pagan, Judaeo-Christian, and atheistic morality, which are usually dictated or governed by religious or civil laws. I
shall first discuss the relationship between sexual desire and morality in
the works of the troubadours.
Concern with morality is one of the main features of courtly love. Indeed,
according to both Denomy and Nelli, the purpose of courtly love was the
ennoblement of the lover. Here is how Denomy defines it in the introduction
to his article "Courtly Love and Courtliness":
Courtly love is a type of sensual love and what distinguishes it from other forms of
sexual love, from mere passion, from so-called platonic love, from married love,
is its purpose or motive, its formal object, namely the lover's progress and growth
in natural goodness, merit and worth. 30
29 Rene de Ceccatty, Laure et Justine (Paris: Editions Jean-Claude Latles, 1996), p. 199. In Petrarch's
poems, Laura is an object of love without sex; in Sade's novel, Justine is an object of sex without
love.
30 Alexander Denomy, "Courtly Love and COUitiiness," Speculum 28 (1953), 44.
298 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
In another article discussing the origins of courtly love, he emphasizes the
uniqueness of this conception of love:
This was a singular conception of love, completely foreign to the religious, moral
and cultural atmosphere in which it first appeared, a type of sexual love that
remained wholly a love of desire to be fanned, inflamed and intensified by every
physical solace short of intercourse, but which was nevertheless, the font and
origin of natural worth and virtueY
No Christian teaching or even paganism, according to Denomy, "could
ever give rise to the troubadour conception of sexual love." And in The
Heresy of Courtly Love, he outlines at length the extent to which courtly
love was contrary to Christian doctrine: "Courtly love not only condones
fornication, adultery, sacrilege ... but represents them as necessary sources
of what it calls virtue." Denomy traces the source of the pure love of the
twelfth-century Provenc;:al troubadours to eleventh-century Muslim Spain,
specifically to a form of Arab mysticism expressed in Avicenna's Treatise
on Love that "coincides in every particular with the fin' Amors of the
troubadours":
it is taught that pure love consists in the union of heart and mind of lovers rather
than of their bodies ... Like theirs, the troubadours' pure love allows tender signs
of mutual affection, the use of the senses of sight and touch, as effecting an ever
closer and more intimate union of heart and mind; like theirs, pure love is the
source of nobility, progress in virtue and refinement. 32
The ennobling force of sexual love in troubadour lyrics is brought out
also by Nelli in L'Erotique des Troubadours. Like Denomy, Nelli points out
that this love is portrayed as the source of almost all the virtues: "L'amour
est plus que l' amour: il est la condition de presque toutes les vertus." "Fin'
amors s' ouvre ainsi, necessairement, sur des perspectives ethiques, et la
servitude volontaire de l' amant ne prend tout son sens que si on la considere
comme une technique de l' ennoblissement interieur." He also illustrates
the extent to which courtly love was contrary to Christian doctrine. Indeed,
it was this moral idealism deriving from the sexual instinct-"cette morale
issue de l' instinct charnel"-that caused the Church eventually to condemn
it: "Ce qu'elle [l'Eglise] ne pouvait tolerer ... c'est qu'ils [les troubadours]
fissent de l' amour Ie principe de toutes les vertus et meme de la chastete."33
31 Alexander Denomy, "Concerning the Accessibility of Arabic Influences to the Earliest Proven9a1
Troubadours," Mediaeval Studies 15 (1953), 153.
32 Deuomy, Heresy of Courtly Love, p. 22; "Concerning the Accessibility of Arabic Influences," p.
153.
33 Nelli, 1:428,381; 2:141, 112-13.
SADE AND COURTLY LOVE 299
It is true that the troubadours refer also to a purely physical sexual
desire-lust or venal love-which did not involve communion of the heart.
This type of desire, however, was generally condemned by the troubadours
as false or impure love, even though they themselves indulged in it at
times. But whatever the behaviour of the troubadours in real life, their
lyrics, especially those of the classic period, 1070-1170, indicate clearly
a belief in the possibility of a pure love based on sexual desire that was
productive of every good.
Sade also represents sexual desire as generating moral behaviour. But
the behaviour generated is precisely the opposite of that expressed in
troubadour poetry; sexual desire inspires crime and vice rather than good
or virtue. And this connection of sexual desire with the urge to commit
immoral, destructive acts is a recurring theme throughout Sade's works.
The author himself comments in a footnote in Histoire de Juliette on
the "liaison singuliere qui se trouve entre les emotions physiques et les
egarements moraux": "Toutes les immoralites s'enchainent, et plus on en
reunira a l' immoralite de foutre, plus on se rendra necessairement heureux"
(Juliette, 3:294). Juliette, the heroine, discusses the relationship between
sex and crime with several characters and there are many examples of it in
the course of the story. Delcour, for instance, affirms:
II n' est pas un seul projet de crime queUe que flit la passion qui m' inspirat, qui n' ait
fait circuler dans mes veines Ie feu subtil de lubricite: Ie mensonge, l'impiete, la
calomnie, la friponnerie, la durete d' arne, la gourmandise meme ont produit dans
moi des effets. (Juliette, 2:124; see also 1:244 and 3:11)
In Les Cent Vingt Journees de Sodome, Durcet speaks of "cette certaine
mechancete qui presque toujours reveille en moi les organes de la lubricite"
(CVJ, 2:52), and Curval affirms that sexual excitement makes him want to
commit crime: "Me voila dans un etat ouj'entreprendrais furieusement de
choses ... telle infamie que l'on voudra me proposer, dilt-elle demembrer
la nature et disloquer l'univers" (CVJ, 3:47).
It is difficult to reconcile this phenomenon-the generation of evil acts
through sexual desire-with the exalted conception of love which is reflected in various ways throughout Sade's writings. Whether because of
his own physical needs and tendencies, or because of the social influences of his time, an ideal love based on sexual desire was obviously
impossible for him. Nevertheless Sade was clearly attracted to the ideal of
300 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION
courtly love, which he had come to know early in life, and he may have
striven for it, perhaps unconsciously.
The fact that Sade makes the same association between sexual desire and
moral behaviour as the Provenr;al troubadours, albeit in an opposite way,
would seem to indicate an influence or connection between the expressions
of sexual desire in Sade and those in the lyrics of the troubadours. It could
very well be that the energy directed towards an ideal of love based on
sex, being frustrated in Sade, reversed itself, causing the virtue and good
associated with this ideal to turn into its opposite, vice and evil. Such
an explanation conforms to Huchel's analysis of the negative streak in
troubadour poetry, which he attributed to the frustration brought about by
the impossibility of complete sexual union.
This is not, moreover, the only example of the destructive effects of frustrated idealism portrayed in Sade's works. One finds the same phenomenon
in his treatment of religion, a subject that also obsessed him. Whenever
the striving of a character to attain some ideal or goal-usually an ideal of
complete harmony within the universe or the welfare of human individuals or societies-is frustrated, the energy directed towards the goal reverses
itself and becomes destructive. 34
Sade's exposure and attraction to the ideal of pure love expressed by
the troubadours in their lyrics and by their poet descendants of southern
France, Italy, and Spain instilled in him a psychological bent or turn of
heart which clashed with his own physical needs and tendencies, as well as
with the materialism and corruption of the society in which he lived. The
resulting frustration may have caused the energy directed towards this ideal
of pure love to metamorphose into its opposite, at least in part accounting
for the violence and sexual perversion portrayed in Sade's works.
Wilfrid Laurier University
34 See Lorna Bermao, "The Marquis de Sade and Religion," Revue de ['Universiti d'Ottawa (1969),
627--40.