It’s a Sadistic Story, and France Wants It

By ELAINE SCIOLINO - Published: January 21, 2013 - The New York Times

PARIS — “The 120 Days of Sodom,” by the Marquis de Sade, is one of the most perverse works of 18th-century literature.

Fondation Martin Bodmer

Remy de la Mauviniere/Associated Press

The French National Library, which in 2010 bought Casanova’s memoirs, above, is now negotiating to purchase “The 120 Days of Sodom,” by the Marquis de Sade. The manuscript, written by Sade in the Bastille, has had a peripatetic existence.

The Marquis de Sade.

It tells the story of four rich “libertines” who lock themselves in a remote medieval castle with 46 victims (including eight boys and eight girls, ages 12 to 15). The men are assisted by four female brothel keepers who arouse their hosts by recounting their outlandish (and embellished) experiences.

The work describes orgies and acts of abuse — sexual and otherwise — including pedophilia, necrophilia, incest, torture, rape, murder, infanticide, bestiality, violent anal and oral sex acts and the use of urination and defecation to humiliate and punish.

Sade called it “the most impure tale that has ever been told since our world began.”

There is nothing erotic about it.

Even Bruno Racine, director of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the National Library, calls it “depraved.”

But that hasn’t stopped him from negotiating long and hard to buy Sade’s manuscript. He has convinced the Foreign and Culture Ministries of its importance. He has argued in front of the Commission of National Treasures to declare it provisionally a “national treasure” that needs to be preserved in the library. And he is ready to pay more than $5 million to get it. 

Full article at The New York Times