Donatien-Alphonse-François, marquis de SADE. L.A.S., [Paris] - Lot 153

Donatien-Alphonse-François, marquis de SADE. L.A.S., [Paris] 30 frimaire II (20 décembre 1793), au citoyen Quinquin, notaire, à Avignon; 3pages in-4, address (small tear due to broken seal). Important letter written from the Madelonnettes prison, affirming his attachment to the Revolution and condemning the emigration of his children. Sade charges Quinquin with an essential and important matter. "There is talk of a decree tending to place under sequestration the property of all the fathers and mothers of emigrants who cannot prove that they have put all the opposition in their power to the emigration of their children, and no one in the world being more in the case of this exception than I." Sade therefore draws up a brief, and instructs Quinquin to entrust it to one of the best lawyers in Avignon; "He will do whatever he deems appropriate, provided he succeeds, and you will pay him as soon as he has succeeded with the first denarii due from my land in Mazan". Most of this letter is taken up by the "Memoire a presenter au département en y ajouter ou diminuant tout ce qu'il plaira au conseil que je prie le citoyen Quinquin de me choisir a cet effet", written in the third person. "Citizen Sade attests that he is completely unaware of the fate of his children; deprived of his freedom for thirteen years, these children, whom he left in their infancy at the time of his arrest, only appeared before their father one day, about a year after his freedom, i.e. around the spring of 1792. In this one and only visit, he told them what they owed to a government that was breaking their father's bonds, and urged them to show their gratitude by sacrificing their blood for him; [...These children, who had been brought up in the family of citoyen Sade's wife, advised and directed by this family, where the citizen's most mortal enemies were to be found, these children whom he had only ever seen for one day, disappeared the day after this visit, and were reunited with their bodies [...] Sade has never heard from his children since that time. He learned of their fault, however, and, incensed by this atrocity, he immediately wrote three letters, one to their grandfather, one to his wife, from whom he was physically and financially separated, and the third to them [...] Sade has never written to them since this fulminating letter, which they never received; he has never sent them any funds; he has absolutely no idea where they are; he has publicly and strongly opposed their departure. This departure is the work of a family who alone educated, maintained, housed, advised &c. them, of a family who hates citizen Sade, and who has never ceased to pursue him, and to do him wrong. No crime can be made against him on the formal disobedience of his children; Sade therefore rightly implores the amendment of the decree which states that such wrongs cannot be imputed to those who have behaved as he has done, and he asks that sequestration cannot be placed on the property of a man who, like himself, has so clearly demonstrated his attachment to the revolution; his own cannot be doubted, he has shown it in all times; could he not ad[orer] a revolution which has made him free; could he not dread a counter-revolution which would plunge him back into eternal fetters"... Attached is a L.A. to the same address, 5 nivôse [December 25, 1793] (2p. in-4), on the subject of his children's emigration, recalling his firm opposition to it...