Note 53 — III. GENERAL PATHOLOGY.[28]

Taxil (op. cit.) gives more detailed accounts of this sexual monster, which must have been a case of habitual satyriasis, accompanied by perverse sexual instinct. Sade was so cynical that he actually sought to idealize his cruel lasciviousness, and become the apostle of a theory based upon it. He became so bad (among other things he made an invited company of ladies and gentlemen erotic by causing to be served to them chocolate bon-bons which contained cantharides) that he was committed to the insane asylum at Charenton. During the revolution of 1790, he escaped. Then he wrote obscene novels filled with lust, cruelty, and the most obscene scenes. When Bonaparte became Consul, Sade made him a present of his novels magnificently bound. The Consul had the works destroyed, and the author committed to Charenton again, where he died, at the age of sixty-four.