whom he induced by false pretenses to come to his house, and the administration of aphrodisiacal bonbons to some prostitutes at Marseilles.  It is owing to the fact that the prime of his manhood was spent in prisons that De Sade fell back on dreaming, study, and novel-writing.  Shut out from real life, he solaced his imagination with the perverted visions—­to a very large extent, however, founded on knowledge of the real facts of perverted life in his time—­which he has recorded in Justine (1781); Les 120 Journees de Sodome ou l’Ecole du Libertinage (1785); Aline et Valcour ou le Roman Philosophique (1788); Juliette (1796); La Philosophie dans le Boudoir (1795).  These books constitute a sort of encyclopedia of sexual perversions, an eighteenth century Psychopathia Sexualis, and embody, at the same time, a philosophy.  He was the first, Bloch remarks, who realized the immense importance of the sexual question.  His general attitude may be illustrated by the following passage (as quoted by Lacassagne):  “If there are beings in the world whose acts shock all accepted prejudices, we must not preach at them or punish them ... because their bizarre tastes no more depend upon themselves than it depends on you whether you are witty or stupid, well made or hump-backed....  What would become of your laws, your morality, your religion, your gallows, your Paradise, your gods, your hell, if it were shown that such and such fluids, such fibers, or a certain acridity in the blood, or in the animal spirits, alone suffice to make a man the object of your punishments or your rewards?” He was enormously well read, Bloch points out, and his interest extended to every field of literature:  belles lettres, philosophy, theology, politics, sociology, ethnology, mythology, and history.  Perhaps his favorite reading was travels.  He was minutely familiar with the bible, though his attitude was extremely critical.  His favorite philosopher was Lamettrie, whom he very frequently quotes, and he had carefully studied Machiavelli.

De Sade had foreseen the Revolution; he was an ardent admirer of Marat, and at this period he entered into public life as a mild, gentle, rather bald and gray-haired person.  Many scenes of the Revolution were the embodiment in real life of De Sade’s imagination; such, for instance, were the barbaric tortures inflicted, at the instigation of Theroigne de Mericourt, on La Belle Bouquetiere.  Yet De Sade played a very peaceful part in the events of that time, chiefly as a philanthropist, spending much of his time in the hospitals.  He saved his parents-in-law from the scaffold, although they had always been hostile to him, and by his moderation aroused the suspicions of the revolutionary party, and was again imprisoned.  Later he wrote a pamphlet against Napoleon, who never forgave him and had him shut up in Charenton as a lunatic; it was a not unusual method at that time of disposing