The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinage () is an unfinished novel by the French writer and nobleman Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, written in 1785 and published in 1904 after its manuscript was rediscovered. It describes the activities of four wealthy libertine Frenchmen who spend four months seeking the ultimate sexual gratification through orgies, sealing themselves in an inaccessible castle in the heart of the Black Forest with 12 accomplices, 20 designated victims and 10 servants. Four aging prostitutes relate stories of their most memorable clients whose sexual practices involved 600 "passions" including coprophilia, necrophilia, bestiality, incest, rape, and child sexual abuse. The stories inspire the libertines to engage in acts of increasing violence leading to the torture and murder of their victims, most of whom are adolescents and young women.
The novel survives only in draft form. Its introduction and first part were written according to Sade's detailed plan, but the subsequent three parts are mostly in the form of notes. Sade wrote it in secrecy while imprisoned in the Bastille. When the fortress was stormed by revolutionaries on 14 July 1789, Sade believed the manuscript had been lost. However, it had been found and preserved without his knowledge and was eventually published in a restricted edition in 1904 for its scientific interest to sexologists. The novel was banned as pornographic in France and English-speaking countries before becoming more widely available in commercial editions in the 1960s. It was published in the prestigious French Pléiade edition in 1990 and a new English translation was published as a Penguin Classic in 2016.
The novel attracted increasing critical interest after World War II. In 1957, Georges Bataille said it "towers above all other books in that it represents man's fundamental desire for freedom that he is obliged to contain and keep quiet". Critical opinion, however, remains divided. Neil Schaeffer calls it "one of the most radical, one of the most important novels ever written", whereas for Laurence Louis Bongie it is "an unending mire of permuted depravities".
Text Existing texts derive from an incomplete manuscript discovered after the storming of the Bastille in 1789. The novel consists of an introduction and four parts along with notes, supplements and addenda. Sade completed the introduction and first part in draft form. Parts Two to Four mainly consist of detailed notes. Sade did not revise and correct the draft he had completed and therefore there are some errors and inconsistencies.
Plot
The 120 Days of Sodom is set near the end of the reign of Louis XIV (circa 1700). Four wealthy libertines—the Duc de Blangis (representing the nobility), the Bishop of X*** (representing the clergy), the Président de Curval (representing the legal system), and Durcet (representing high finance)—lock themselves in an isolated castle, the Château de Silling, atop a mountain in the Black Forest, along with a number of accomplices and victims. Their main accomplices are four middle-aged women, who have spent their lives in debauchery and will recount stories of libertinage, torture, and murder for the pleasure and instruction of the male libertines, who will then seek to emulate these crimes on selected victims. Eight male accomplices, called "fuckers", have been recruited for their large penises. The principal victims will be drawn from the libertines' four daughters, three of whom have been given in marriage to libertines other than their fathers. The other victims will be drawn from a harem of girls and boys, aged from 12 to 15. The libertines have also engaged other servants, including governesses, cooks, and scullery maids.
The orgy takes place from 1 November to 28 February and is organised according to rules and a strict timetable, to which each of the victims must adhere on pain of corporal punishment or death. Sex sessions are scheduled before and after a session of storytelling each evening. Each storyteller is on duty for a month, and each evening she recounts a story from her life that illustrates five "passions" (perversions of the laws of nature and religion). Over the four months, therefore, there will be 120 stories, illustrating 600 passions. These passions are in four categories of increasing complexity and savagery—simple, complex, criminal, and murderous. The four libertines frequently interrupt these stories to indulge in the described passions with the victims and others. They also emulate the passions in orgies after the stories are told.
Introduction. The background to the 120-day orgy is presented in detail, along with character portraits of the four libertines and their daughters. Blangis opines that there is no god and that he is but a machine following the instincts given to him by Nature. Classification of deeds as virtue and vice are merely social conventions, and the only universal good is personal pleasure. Given that vice gives him the most pleasure, he is obeying Nature's dictates by indulging his vices and passions. Part One. November, the simple passions. These anecdotes are written in detail. They are "simple" in the sense of not including sexual intercourse. The stories include sexual abuse of children, urine-drinking, vomit-drinking, coprophilia, and necrophilia. Blangis opines that Nature teaches us to hate our mothers. He later adds that crime is in itself pleasurable and thus in accordance with Nature. Curval, however, opines that after one commits the two or three greatest crimes, the pleasure palls. He would love to destroy the sun or use that star to burn the world. Part Two. December, the complex passions. These anecdotes, written in note form, involve acts such as men who vaginally rape children as young as three and indulge in incest and flagellation. There are tales of men who indulge in sacrilegious activities, such as having sex with prostitutes during Mass. The female children are raped vaginally during the evening orgies. Other elements of that month's stories, such as whipping, are enacted. Part Three. January, the criminal passions. The notes outline tales of libertines who indulge in criminal activities, albeit stopping short of murder. They include men who sodomise girls as young as three, men who prostitute their daughters to others and watch the proceedings, and others who mutilate women by tearing off their fingers or burning them with red-hot pokers. During the month, the four libertines have anal sex with the sixteen male and female children, who, along with the other victims, are treated more brutally as time goes on, with regular beatings, whippings, and torture. Part Four. February, the murderous passions. The final 150 anecdotes, mostly written in note form, involve murder. They include libertines who skin children alive, disembowel pregnant women, burn entire families alive, and kill newborn babies in front of their mothers. The final tale is the only one written in detail since the simple passions of November: it features the "hell libertine", who is manually stimulated by servants while watching 15 teenage girls being simultaneously tortured to death. During this month, the libertines kill three of their four daughters along with four of the female children, two of the male ones, and one "fucker". The torture, murder, and mutilation of one of the girls is described in detail. March. Sade lists those who have been murdered during the 120 days. The libertines decide to spare 12 of the survivors and murder the rest. The ones spared are the four storytellers, four of the fuckers, the three cooks, and Julie. They draw up a schedule of executions, one to be carried out each day. Sade then presents a final tally: 10 were murdered in the course of the orgies, 20 were killed from 1 March, and 16 returned to Paris.
Characters Four male libertines:
The Duc de Blangis is a 50-year-old aristocrat who acquired his wealth by poisoning his mother for her inheritance. He also murdered his sister and three wives. He is tall, strong, and has a large penis and a voracious sexual appetite. He has murdered women during sexual intercourse but is a coward. The Bishop of X*** is Blangis's 45-year-old brother. He acquired his wealth by murdering two youths in his care and stealing their inheritance. He shares his brother's vices but is scrawny and weak. His passion is active and passive sodomy, and he also enjoys combining murder with sex. He is a misogynist who refuses to have vaginal intercourse. The Président de Curval is 60, lanky and "frightfully dirty about his body". (He is a mysophiliac.) He is a former judge who enjoyed sentencing the innocent to death. He once raped a young girl and forced her and her mother to watch the execution of the girl's father. He then murdered the two females. Durcet is a banker aged 53. He is short, chubby and pale, with a woman's figure. He murdered his mother, wife, and her niece to obtain a sizable inheritance. He is effeminate and his main passions are passive sodomy and fellatio. He has been in a sexual relationship with Blangis since their adolescence.
Their accomplices are:
The storytellers. Four middle-aged female debauchées who will relate anecdotes of their depraved careers to inspire the four principal characters into similar acts of depravity. Madame Duclos is 48, witty, and still fairly attractive and well-kept. Madame Champville is 50, a lesbian, and likes having her clitoris tickled. She is a vaginal virgin, but her rear is flabby and worn from use, so much so that she feels nothing there. Madame Martaine is 52 and prefers anal sex. A natural deformity prevents her from having vaginal intercourse. Madame Desgranges is 56, pale and emaciated, with dead eyes, whose anus is so enlarged she does not feel anything there. She is missing one nipple, three fingers, six teeth, and an eye. She is witty and the most depraved of the four; a murderer, rapist, and general criminal. Eight "fuckers" who are chosen chiefly because of their large penises. The four who are not identified by name are referred to only as "second-rank fuckers", and are killed in the final massacres during March. Hercule, 26 Antinoüs, 30 Bum-Cleaver (French: Brise-Cul, "Break-Arse") Invictus (French: Bande-au-ciel, "Erect-to-the-sky")
The victims are:
The daughters of the four principal characters, whom they have been sexually abusing for years. All of them are murdered except Julie, who is spared after proving herself a libertine.
Constance is 22. She is the daughter of Durcet and married to Blangis. She is tall, black-haired, attractive and completely ignorant of religion. Adelaide is 20. She is the daughter of Curval and married to Durcet. She is small, slightly built, blonde, romantic, virtuous and devoutly religious. Julie is 24. She is the daughter of Blangis and married to Curval. She is tall, plump and brown-haired. She has a stinking mouth and very poor anal and vaginal hygiene. She is corrupt. Aline is 18. She is the daughter of the Bishop and mistress of Blangis. She is tall and shapely, healthy, sober, clean, practically illiterate, and totally ignorant of religion.
Eight boys and eight girls aged from 12 to 15, chosen for their beauty, virginity and high social status.
The girls: Augustine, 15 Fanny, 14 Zelmire, 15 Sophie, 14 Colombe, 13 Hébé, 12 Rosette, 13 Michette, 12
The boys: Zélamir, 13 Cupidon, 13 Narcisse, 12 Zéphyr, 12 Céladon, 14 Adonis, 15 Hyacinthe, 14 Giton, 12
Four middle-aged women, chosen for their ugliness to stand in contrast to the children, are brought along to serve as duennas. Marie, 58, who strangled all 14 of her children and one of whose buttocks is consumed by an abscess. Louison, 60, stunted, hunchbacked, blind in one eye and lame. Thérèse, 62, has no hair or teeth. Her anus is dirty and resembles the mouth of a volcano. All of her orifices stink.