The Gothic Tales of the Marquis de Sade. A Puke(TM) Audiobook

The Gothic Tales of the Marquis de Sade.Show more

Some Quotes:
May they be convinced that good upbringing, riches, talents and the gifts bestowed by nature are only likely to lead people astray when restraint, good conduct, wisdom and modesty are not there to support them or turn them to good account.

In a century when the most dangerous books are in the hands of children,
as in those of their fathers and teachers, when the temerity of obstinacy passes for philosophy,
unbelief for strength and licentiousness for imagination,

it often happens that a woman who shares our faults pleases us a great deal less in our pleasures than one who is full of naught but virtues: the first resembles us, we scandalize her not; the other is terrified, and there is one very certain charm the more.
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Eugenie de Franval.
A Tragic Story.

Our only motive in writing this story is the instruction of mankind and the betterment of their way of life. May all readers become fully aware of the great peril that always dogs those who do as they wish in order to satisfy their desires. May they be convinced that good upbringing, riches, talents and the gifts bestowed by nature are only likely to lead people astray when restraint, good conduct, wisdom and modesty are not there to support them or turn them to good account: these are the truths that we are going to put into action. May we be forgiven the unnatural details of the horrible crime of which we are forced to speak, is it possible to make such deviations detestable if one has not the courage to present them openly? Rarely does everything harmonies in the same being to lead him to prosperity; if he is favored by nature then fortune refuses him her gifts; if fortune is liberal with her favors then nature treats him badly; it appears that the hand of Heaven wishes to show us that in each individual, as in its most sublime operations, the laws of equilibrium are the first laws of the Universe, the ones which simultaneously regulate everything that happens, everything that vegetates and everything that breathes.

Franval, who lived in Paris, where he was born, possessed, along with an income of 400,000 livres, the finest figure, the most pleasant face and the most varied talents; but beneath this attractive exterior lay hidden every vice, and unfortunately those of which the adoption and habitual indulgence lead so rapidly to crime. An imagination more unbridled than anything one can depict was Franval's prime defect; men of this type do not mend their ways, the decline of power makes them worse; the less they can do, the more they undertake; the less they achieve, the more they invent; each age brings new ideas, and satiety, far from cooling their ardor, only prepares the way for more fatal refinements.
As we said, Franval possessed in profusion all the amenities of youth, all the talents which enhance it; but since he was full of disdain for moral and religious duties it had become impossible for his tutors to make him adopt any of them.

In a century when the most dangerous books are in the hands of children, as in those of their fathers and teachers, when the temerity of obstinacy passes for philosophy, unbelief for strength and licentiousness for imagination, the young Franval's wit was greeted with laughter, a moment later perhaps he was scolded for it, then he was praised.
Franval's father, a great supporter of the fashionable sophistries, was the first to encourage his son to think seriously about all these matters; he himself lent him all the works which could corrupt him more rapidly; what teacher would have dared, after that, to inculcate principles different from those of the household where he was obliged to please? In any case, Franval lost his parents when he was still very young, and at the age of nineteen, an old uncle, who himself died shortly afterwards, assigned him, while arranging his marriage, all the possessions that were to belong to him one day.
Monsieur de Franval, with such a fortune, should easily have found a wife; an infinite number of candidates presented themselves, but since he had begged his uncle to give him only a girl younger than himself, and with as few people around her as possible, the old relative, in order to satisfy his nephew, let his choice fall upon a certain Mademoiselle de Farneille, the daughter of a financier, possessing now only a mother, still young in fact, but with 60,000 livres of very real income; the girl was fifteen, and had the most delightful physiognomy to be found in Paris at that time, one of those virginal faces, in which innocence and charm are depicted together, in the delicate features of love and the graces, fine blonde hair floating below her waist, large blue eyes expressing tenderness and modesty, a slender, supple and slight figure, with a lilywhite skin and the freshness of roses, full of talents, a very lively imagination, but with a touch of sadness, a little of that gentle melancholy which leads to a love of books and solitude; attributes which nature seems to grant only to the individuals whom her hand destines to misfortunes, as though to make them less bitter, through that sober and touching voluptuousness that they enjoy in feeling them, and which makes them prefer tears to the frivolous joy of happiness, much less effective and much less penetrating.
Madame de Farneille, who was thirty-two when her daughter was married, was also witty and attractive, but perhaps slightly too reserved and severe; since she desired the happiness of her only child, she had consulted the whole of Paris about this match; and since she no longer had any relatives and her only advisers were some of those cold friends to whom everything is indifferent, people convinced her that the young man who was being offered to her daughter was without any doubt the best she could find in Paris, and that she would commit an unforgivable folly if she failed to agree to this match, it therefore took place: and the young people, who were rich enough to take their own house, settled in it at once.
In young Franval's heart were none of those vices of frivolity, restlessness or foolishness which prevent a man from being fully developed before thirty; understanding himself very well, liking order, perfectly capable of running a house, Franval possessed all the necessary qualities for this aspect of the enjoyment of life. His vices, of a totally different kind, were indeed rather the faults of maturity than the inconsistencies of youth, artfulness, intrigue, malice, baseness, selfishness, much diplomacy and trickery, while all this was concealed not only by the graces and talents already mentioned but even by eloquence and infinite wit and by the most seductive external appearance.
Such was the man whom we have to depict.
Mademoiselle de Farneille, who, in accordance with custom, had known her husband for a month at the most before allying herself to him, deceived by this false brilliance, had been taken in by him; the days were not long enough for the pleasure of contemplating him, she idolized him, and things had even reached the point when people would have feared for this young person if any obstacle had upset the delights of a marriage in which she found, she said, the only happiness of her life.
As for Franval, who was philosophical about women as about all other things in life, he had considered this delightful person with utter coolness.
The wife who belongs to us, he would say, is a kind of individual whom custom has made subservient to us; she must be gentle, submissive, very demure, not that I am concerned with the prejudices of dishonor which a wife can bring upon us when she imitates our licentiousness, but one does not like the idea that someone else is contemplating the removal of our rights; all the rest is immaterial and adds nothing to happiness.
When a husband feels this way it is easy to prophesy that there are no roses in store for the unfortunate girl who is allied to him. Madame de Franval, who was honorable, sensitive, well brought up and anticipated through love the wishes of the only man in the world who occupied her, wore her chains for the first few years without suspecting her enslavement; it was easy for her to see that she was only gleaning the fields of marriage, but she was still too happy with what was left to her and her only care, her closest attention was directed to the fact that during those brief moments granted to her affection, Franval could at least encounter all that she believed to be necessary to the happiness of this beloved husband.
The best proof of all, however, which Franval still did not exclude from his duties, was that during the first year of his marriage his wife, then aged sixteen and a half, gave birth to a daughter even more beautiful than her mother, and whom the father at once named Eugenie. Eugenie, both the horror and the miracle of nature.
Monsieur de Franval, who, as soon as this child was born, no doubt formed the most detestable designs on her, immediately separated her from her mother. Until the age of seven, Eugenie was entrusted to women of whom Franval was sure and who, limiting their endeavors to forming a good constitution and teaching her to read, took care not to give her any knowledge of religious or moral principles, about which a girl of her age should normally be instructed.
Madame de Farneille and her daughter, who were very shocked by this conduct, reproached Monsieur de Franval about it; he replied phlegmatically that since his plan was to make his daughter happy, he did not want to force upon her fantasies which were only likely to frighten people without ever becoming useful to them; that a girl whose only need was to learn how to please could at best be unaware of this nonsense, of which the imaginary existence, in disturbing the calm of her life, would give her no additional moral truth and no additional physical grace. Such remarks caused immediate displeasure to Madame de Farneille who, as she moved away from the pleasures of this world, was going closer to thoughts of heaven. Piety is a weakness dependent on age or health.

When the passions are at their height a future which one believes to be very distant usually causes little uneasiness, but when their language is less lively, as we near the end, when finally everything leaves us, we cast ourselves again into the bosom of the God whom we heave heard mentioned in childhood, and if according to the philosophers these later illusions are as fantastic as the others, they are at least not so dangerous.
Since Franval's mother-in-law had no longer any relatives, little credit on her own, and at the most, as we have said a few of those casual friends, who avoid responsibility if we put them to the test, having to struggle against a likeable, young and well placed son-in-law, imagined very sensibly that it war simpler to keep to representations rather than to undertake stringent measures, with a man who would ruin the mother and have the daughter locked up, if they dared to stand up to him; in the meantime Madame de Farneille merely hazarded a few remonstrances and became silent as soon as she saw that this was achieving nothing.
Franval, sure of his superiority, seeing clearly that he was feared, soon renounced all scruples concerning anything whatsoever, and contenting himself with some slight concealment, simply because of the public, went straight to his horrible goal.
As soon as Eugenie reached the age of seven, Franval took her to his wife; and this loving mother, who had not seen her child since she had brought her into the world, unable to have her fill of caresses, held her for two hours pressed against her bosom, covering her with kisses, bathing her with tears. She wanted to know what talents she possessed, but Eugenie had none beyond reading fluently, enjoying the most robust health and of being angelically beautiful. Madame de Franval was again in despair when she realized that it was only too true that her daughter was unaware of even the first principles of religion.
“What is this, sir,” she said to her husband, “are you therefore bringing her up only for this world? Will you not deign to reflect that she will only inhabit it for a moment like us, and afterwards will plunge into eternity, which will certainly be fatal if you deprive her of what can make her enjoy there a happy fate at the feet of the Being from whom she received life.”
“If Eugenie knows nothing, Madame,” replied Franval, “if these maxims are carefully concealed from her, she could not be unhappy; for if they are true, the Supreme Being is too fair to punish her for her ignorance, and if they are false, why mention them to her? As regards the other needs of her education, have confidence in me, I beg you; from today I am to be her teacher, and I assure you that in a few years' time your daughter will surpass all children of her age.”
Madame de Franval tried to insist, invoking the eloquence of the heart to assist that of reason, shedding some tears; but Franval, who was unmoved by them, did not even seem to notice them; he had Eugenie taken away, saying to his wife that if she considered opposing in any way the education which he hoped to give his daughter, or if she suggested to him principles different from those which he proposed to instill in her, she would deprive herself of the pleasure of seeing her, and that he would send his daughter to one of his chateaux from which she would never emerge again. Madame de Franval, who had become used to submission, was silent; she begged her husband not to separate her from such a treasured possession and promised, weeping, not to disturb in any way the education that was being prepared for her.
From this moment Mademoiselle de Franval was placed in a very fine apartment next to that of her father, with a highly intelligent governess, an under-governess, a chambermaid and two little girls of her own age, who were there for the sole purpose of relaxation. She was given teachers for writing, drawing, poetry, natural history, declamation, geography, astronomy, anatomy, Greek, English, German, Italian, together with instructors for handling weapons, dancing, riding and music. Eugenie rose every day at seven o'clock, whatever the season she ran about the garden eating a large piece of rye bread, which formed her breakfast; she came in at eight o'clock, spent a few moments in her father's apartment, while he played with her or taught her little society games; until nine o'clock she prepared her work; then the first teacher arrived and she received five of them until two o'clock. She took her meal separately with her two friends and her chief governess. The dinner consisted of vegetables, fish, pastries and fruit, never any meat, soup, wine, liqueurs or coffee.
From three o'clock to four, Eugenie went back into the garden to play for an hour with her little companions; they played together at tennis, ball-games, skittles, battledore and shuttlecock, or at running races; they wore comfortable clothing according to the season; nothing constricted their waists; they were never fastened into those ridiculous whalebones, which are equally dangerous for the stomach and the chest and which, hindering a young person's breathing, must necessarily harm the lungs. From four to six o'clock Mademoiselle de Franval received more teachers; and since they could not all appear in twenty-four hours, the remainder came during the next day. Three times a week Eugenie went to the theatre with her father, sitting in a little box with gratings, hired for her by the year. At nine o'clock she returned home and took supper, being served only with vegetables and fruit. From ten to eleven o'clock, four times a week, Eugenie played with her women, read a few novels and then went to bed. She spent the three other days, when Franval did not take supper away from home, alone in her father's apartment, and this time was employed in what Franval called his “lectures”.
During these he instilled into his daughter his maxims on morals and religion; on one side he showed her what some people thought about these matters and on the other he set out what he accepted himself.
Since she had much wit, wide knowledge, a lively intelligence and passions which were already aroused, it is easy to judge of the progress made by such ideas in Eugenie's mind; but since the object of the unworthy Franval was not only to strengthen the mind, his lectures rarely ended without stirring up the emotions; and this horrible man had found so skillfully the means of pleasing his daughter, he seduced her with such art, he made himself so useful in her instruction and her relaxation, he anticipated with such ardor everything which could please her, that Eugenie, in the midst of the most brilliant circles, found no one as attractive as her father; and even before the latter explained himself, the innocent and weak creature had accumulated in her young heart all the feelings of love, gratitude and affection which must necessarily lead to the most ardent desire; Franval was the only man in the world to her; she could distinguish only him, she was revolted by the idea of everything that could separate him from her; she would have given him not her honor, not her charms-for all these sacrifices would have seemed too slight for the moving object of her idolatry-but her blood, her very life, if this tender companion of her soul had demanded it.

This was not the case as far as Mademoiselle de Franval's feelings for her worthy and unfortunate mother were concerned. Her father skillfully told Eugenie that Madame de Franval, being his wife, demanded from him attention which often made him unable to do everything for his dear Eugenie that his feelings dictated; he had followed the secret of instilling into this young person's heart much more hate and jealousy than the kind of respectable and affectionate feelings which should have arisen for such a mother.
“My friend, my brother,” Eugenie would sometimes say to Franval, who did not want his daughter to use any other expressions with him, “this woman whom you call your wife, this creature who, according to you, brought me into the world, must therefore be very demanding, since in wanting you always with her, she deprives me of the happiness of spending my life with you. I see it clearly, you prefer her to your Eugenie. As far as I am concerned, I will never love anything which takes your heart away from me.”
“My dear friend,” replied Franval, “no, nobody whatsoever in the entire world will acquire such powerful rights as yours; the ties which exist between this woman and your best friend are the result of custom and social conventions; I regard them in a philosophical light, and they will never affect those which bind us together, you will always be the one preferred, Eugenie; you will be the angel and the light of my days, the focus of my soul and the purpose of my existence.”
“Oh, how sweet are these words!” replied Eugenie, “repeat them often, my friend. If you knew how pleasing to me are the expressions of your tenderness.”
She took Franval's hand and pressed it to her heart.
“Yes, yes, I feel them all here,” she went on.
“How your tender caresses assure me of that,” replied Franval, clasping her in his arms. And in this way, without any remorse, the traitor completed the seduction of the unfortunate girl.
However, Eugenie was reaching her fourteenth year, the moment when Franval wanted to consummate his crime.
He did so. Let us shudder!
The very day when she reached this age, or rather that on which her fourteenth year was completed, they both found themselves in the country, with no relatives present and no one to disturb them. On that day the Count, having caused his daughter to be dressed like the virgins who in the past were consecrated in the temple of Venus, led her, at eleven o'clock in the morning, into a voluptuously decorated drawing-room where the daylight was softened by gauze curtains and the furniture strewn with flowers. In the center stood a throne of roses, Franval led his daughter towards it.
“Eugenie,” he told her, seating her upon it, “be today the queen of my heart, and let me adore you on my knees.”
“Let you adore me, my brother, when it is I who owe you everything, when you created me and brought me up! Ah, let me rather fall at your feet; this is the only place for me, and with you it is the only one to which I aspire.”
“Oh, my tender Eugenie,” said the Count, taking his place near her on the flower-strewn cushions which were to serve his triumph, “if it is true that you owe me something, if in fact the feelings you have for me are as sincere as you say, do you know how to convince me of it?”
“How, my brother? Tell me quickly so that I can understand at once.”
“All these charms, Eugenie, that nature has so liberally bestowed upon you, all these attentions with which she has beautified you, must be sacrificed to me immediately.”
“But what are you asking me? Are you not master of everything? Does not your creation belong to you, can anyone else enjoy your handiwork?”
“But you realize the prejudices of men.”
“You have in no way concealed them from me.”
“I do not therefore want to go against them without your agreement.”
“Do you not despise them as I do?”
“That is so, but I do not want to tyrannize you, much less seduce you; I want to receive the favors I seek from love alone. You know what the world is like, I have hidden none of its attractions from you. To hide men from your sight, to let you see nobody except myself, would have been a deception unworthy of me; if there exists in the universe a being whom you prefer to me, name him at once, I will go to the ends of the earth to find him and will lead him to your arms at once. In fact it is your happiness that I want, my angel, your happiness much more than mine, the sweet pleasures that you can give me would be nothing to me if they were not the price of your love. Decide, therefore, Eugenie. The moment has come when you are to be sacrificed, you must be. But you yourself must name the man who will carry out the sacrifice, I renounce the pleasures that this title ensures for me if I do not receive them from your heart; and if it is not I whom you prefer, I shall always be worthy of your feelings in bringing you the one whom you can love. If I have not been able to captivate your heart, I will at least have deserved your affection; and I shall be Eugenie's friend, having failed to become her lover.”
“You shall be everything, brother, you shall be everything,” said Eugenie, burning with love and desire. “To whom do you want me to sacrifice myself, if it is not to the only man whom I adore? What being in the universe can be more worthy than you of these poor charms that you desire, and which your burning hands are already caressing with ardor! Do you not see from the fire that consumes me that I am as anxious as you to experience the pleasure of which you tell me? Ah, take me, take me, my loving brother, my best friend, make Eugenie your victim; sacrificed by your beloved hands she will always be triumphant.”
The ardent Franval, who, in accordance with his character, had only armed himself with so much delicacy in order to seduce with more finesse, soon took advantage of this daughter’s credulity and, with all obstacles removed, as much through the principles with which he had nourished this soul that was open to all kinds of impressions, as through the art with which he captivated her at the last moment, he completed his perfidious conquest, and with impunity destroyed the virginity which by nature and by right it was his responsibility to defend.
Several days passed in mutual intoxication. Eugenie, who was old enough to know the pleasures of love, was encouraged by his methods and abandoned herself to it with enthusiasm.
Franval taught her all love's mysteries and mapped out all its routes; the more he increased his adoration the better he enslaved his conquest. She would have like to receive him in a thousand temples at once, accusing him of not allowing his imagination to stray far enough; she thought he was concealing something from her. She complained of her age and of an ingenuousness which perhaps did not make her seductive enough: and if she wanted more instruction it was so that no means of arousing her lover could remain unknown to her.
They returned to Paris, but the criminal pleasures which had intoxicated this perverse man had given too much delectable enjoyment to his physical and moral faculties for the inconstancy which usually destroyed all his other intrigues to sever the ties of this one. He fell desperately in love, and this dangerous passion led inevitably to the most cruel abandonment of his wife. Alas, what a victim she was! Madame de Franval, then thirty-one years old, was at the height of her beauty; an air of sadness which was inevitable in view of the sorrows that consumed her, made her more intriguing still; bathed in tears, crushed by melancholy, her beautiful hair carelessly flowing loose over her alabaster bosom, her lips pressed amorously to the beloved portrait of her faithless tyrant, she resembled those beautiful virgins whom Michelangelo painted in the midst of sorrow: but she was still unaware of what was to complete her torment. The way in which Eugenie was being educated, the essential things of which she was left in ignorance, or which were only mentioned to her in order to make her hate them; her certainty that these duties, despised by Franval, would never be permitted to her daughter; the brief time she was allowed to see the girl, the fear that the unusual education she was receiving would sooner or later lead her to crime, the eccentricities of Franval in fact, his daily harshness towards her, she who was occupied only in anticipating his wishes, who knew no other charms except those which would interest or please him; until now these had been the only causes of her affliction. "What sorrow was to pierce this loving and sensitive soul as soon as she learned everything!
However, Eugenie's education continued; she herself had wished to continue with her teachers until the age of sixteen, and her talents, her extensive knowledge, the graces which were developing in her each day, everything enslaved Franval more strongly; it was easy to see that he had never loved anyone as he loved Eugenie.
In Mademoiselle de Franval's external life nothing had been changed except the times of the lectures; these intimate discussions with her father became much more frequent and lasted long into the night. Only Eugenie's governess was informed of this intrigue and they trusted her enough not to fear any indiscretion on her part. There were also some changes in the arrangements for Eugenie's meals, she now took them with her parents. In a house such as Franval's this soon caused Eugenie to meet other people, and to be desired as a wife. Several people asked for her hand Franval, who was certain of his daughter's heart, had not thought it at all necessary to fear these approaches, but he had not realized sufficiently that this rush of proposals might perhaps succeed in revealing everything.
During a conversation with her daughter, a favor so desired by Madame de Franval, and one she obtained so rarely, this affectionate mother informed Eugenie that Monsieur de Colunce wished to marry her.
“You know this man, my daughter,” said Madame de Franval; “he loves you, he is young and likeable; he will be rich, he merely awaits your consent, your consent only, my daughter, how shall I reply?”
Eugenie, taken by surprise, blushed and replied that she felt no taste for marriage as yet, but that her father could be consulted; she would have no wishes other than his.
Madame de Franval saw this reply only as straightforward, waited patiently for some days and, finding at last an opportunity to mention it to her husband, she communicated to him the intentions of the young Colunce’s family and those that he had revealed himself, to which she added her daughter's reply.
It can well be imagined that Franval knew everything; but he nevertheless succeeded in disguising this without showing too much self-control.
“Madame,” he said drily to his wife, “I ask you earnestly not to involve Eugenie in this; the care you have seen me take to remove her from you must have made it easy for you to recognize how much I wanted all that concerned her to have nothing to do with you. I renew my orders to you on this subject, you will not forget them, I imagine?”
“But how should I reply, sir, since it is I whom they ask?”
“You will say that I appreciate the honor they show me, and that my daughter has defects dating from birth which make marriage difficult.”
“But sir, these defects are certainly not real; why do you want me to be upset by them and why deprive your only daughter of the happiness she can find in marriage?”
“Have these ties made you very happy, Madame?”
“Not all women make the mistakes which I have no doubt made, in failing to captivate you (and with a sigh), or else all husbands do not resemble you.”
“Wives, false, jealous, domineering, coquettish or pious. Husbands, treacherous, unfaithful, cruel or despotic, there in a nutshell are all the individuals in the world, Madame; don't hope to find a phoenix”.
“And yet everyone gets married.”
“Yes, the fools or the idlers; nobody ever marries, said one philosopher, except when they don't know what they are doing, or when they don't know what to do.”
“Must one let the world come to an end, then?”
“One might as well; it is never too early to exterminate a plant which yields nothing but poison.”
“Eugenie will not be very grateful to you for this excessive severity towards her.”
“Does this marriage appear to please her?”
“Your wishes are her commands, she said so.”
“Very well, Madame, my wishes are that you give up this marriage.”
And Monsieur de Franval went out, again forbidding his wife in the strongest terms to speak of it again.
Madame de Franval did not fail to repeat to her mother the conversation she had just had with her husband, and Madame de Farneille, who was more subtle and more accustomed to the effects of the passions than her attractive daughter, suspected at once that there was something abnormal involved.
Eugenie very rarely saw her grandmother, for an hour at the most during social events, and always in Franval's presence. Madame de Farneille therefore, wishing to be enlightened, asked her son-in-law to send her granddaughter to her one day and leave her with her for a whole afternoon in order to cure her, she said, of an attack of migraine from which she was suffering; Franval replied harshly that there was nothing that Eugenie feared as much as the vapors, that he would however bring her where she was wanted but that she could not stay there long, since she was under an obligiation to go from there to a physics lesson, a course that she was following assiduously.
They went to Madame de Farneille's, who in no way concealed from her son-in-law her astonishment that the proposed marriage had been refused.
“I think,” She went on, “you need have no fear in allowing your daughter to convince me herself of the defect which, according to you, must deprive her of marriage.”
“Whether this defect is real or not, Madame,” said Franval somewhat surprised by his mother-in-law's determination, “the fact is that it would cost me a great deal to marry my daughter and I am still too young to agree to such sacrifices; when she is twenty-five, she will do as she wishes; she must not count on me in any way until then.”
“And are your feelings still the same, Eugenie?” asked Madame de Farneille.
“They differ in one respect, Madame,” said Mademoiselle de Franval very firmly; my father allows me to marry when I am twenty-five, and I, Madame, assure both you and him that I will not take advantage at any point in my lifetime of a permission, which, to my way of thinking, would only contribute to my unhappiness.”
“One has no way of thinking at your age, miss,” said Madame de Farneille, “and there is something unusual in all this which I must certainly sort out.”
“I urge you to do so, Madame,” said Franval, as he took his daughter away; “it will even be a very good thing if you employ your clergy to penetrate to the heart of the problem, and when all your powers have exerted themselves cleverly, and when you finally know the answer, kindly tell me if I am right or wrong in opposing Eugenie's marriage.”
The sarcasm levelled by Franval at his mother-in-law's ecclesiastical advisers was aimed at a praiseworthy person whom it is relevant to introduce, since the progress of events will soon show him in action.
This was the spiritual director to Madame de Farneille and her daughter, one of the most virtuous men in France, honest, benevolent, straightforward and wise, Monsieur de Clervil, far from having all the vices of his cloth, possessed only gentle and useful qualities. A reliable support for the poor, a sincere friend of the opulent, consoler of the unfortunate, this worthy man had all the gifts which make someone likeable and all the virtues which make up a sensitive person.
When he was consulted Clervil replied like a man of good sense that before taking sides in this matter it was necessary to work out Monsieur de Franval's reasons for opposing his daughter's marriage; and although Madame de Farneille made some remarks likely to arouse suspicion about the intrigue which existed only too truly in fact, the prudent director rejected these ideas, and finding them much too insulting towards Madame de Franval and her husband, he disagreed with them indignantly.
“Crime is such a distressing thing, Madame,” this honest man would sometimes say; “it seems so unlikely that a well-conducted person will voluntarily exceed the bounds of modesty and all the restraints of virtue, that it is only with the most extreme repugnance that I decide to attribute such faults; let us only rarely suspect vice; such feelings are often the result of our amour-propre, almost always the outcome of a hidden comparison made in the depths of our mind; we hasten to admit evil so that we can be entitled to find ourselves better. If you think about it seriously, would it not be better, Madame, if a secret fault were never laid bare, rather than for us to invent illusory ones through unforgivable haste and thus to blight without cause as I see it, people who have committed no other errors except those which our pride has attributed to them? Moreover, does not everything gain from this principle? Is it not infinitely less essential to punish a crime than to prevent it from spreading? By leaving it in the obscurity it seeks, is it not as good as abolished? Scandal is certain to spread it abroad. descriptions of it arouse the passions of those inclined to the same type of errors; the inevitable blindness of crime arouses the hope of the guilty man to be happier than him who has just been recognized as such; he has not been given a lesson but a piece of advice, and he abandons himself to excesses that he would perhaps never have dared to commit without the imprudent scandal mistakenly regarded as justice, and which is no more than ill-conceived severity or vanity in disguise.
The only decision taken therefore at this first meeting was that of verifying precisely why Franval had put off his daughter's marriage and why Eugenie shared the same way of thinking: it was decided that nothing should be undertaken before these motives were laid bare.
“Well, Eugenie,” said Franval that evening to his daughter, “You see, they want to separate us, will they succeed, my child? Will they manage to sever the most cherished bonds of my life?”
“Never, never, do not fear it, my dearest friend! The ties in which you revel are as precious to me as to you; you have in no way deceived me, you showed me, while forming them, to what extent they clashed with custom. I am not afraid to contravene practices which, varying from one part of the world to another, cannot be sacred in any way; I desired these bonds, I wove them without remorse, do not fear therefore that I shall break them.”
“Alas, who knows? Colunce is younger than I am. He has everything necessary to attract you, do not heed, Eugenie, the residue of error which no doubt blinds you; maturity and the light of reason will dispel prestige and will soon lead to regrets, you will blame me for them, and I shall not forgive myself for having been the cause of them!”
“No,” Eugenie went on firmly, “no, I am determined to love you alone; I should believe myself the most unfortunate of women if I had to take a husband, I,” she went on, with warmth, “link myself to a stranger who, not having like you twin reasons for loving me, would limit his feelings, at the most his desires. If I were to be abandoned and despised by him, what would become of me afterwards? Would I be a sanctimonious prude or a harlot? Oh, no, no, I would rather be your mistress, my friend. Yes, I love you a thousand times too much to be reduced to playing in society either of those infamous roles. But what is the cause of all this disturbance?” Eugenie went on bitterly.
“do you know what it is, my friend? Who it is? Your wife! She alone. Her insatiable jealousy. Have no doubt about it, those are the sole causes of the misfortunes which threaten us, Ah! I do not blame her for it: everything is simple, everything is understandable, everything is possible when it is a question of keeping you. What would I not undertake if I were in her place, and someone wanted to take your heart away from me?”
Franval, strangely moved, embraced his daughter time and time again; and the latter, further encouraged by these criminal caresses, developing her atrocious thoughts in a more energetic fashion, dared to tell her father, with unpardonable shamelessness, that the only way in which they could both be less closely observed was to provide her mother with a lover. This plan entertained Franval; but since he was much more wicked than his daughter and wanted imperceptibly to prepare her youthful heart for all the feelings of hatred against his wife that he intended to sow there, he replied that he thought this revenge too mild, and that there were many other ways of upsetting a woman when she annoyed her husband.
A few weeks passed in this manner, during which Franval and his daughter finally decided on the first plan conceived to bring despair to this monster's virtuous wife, believing, rightly, that before adopting more unworthy procedures, they must at least try to produce a lover; this would not only provide material for all other methods, but, if it succeeded, would of necessity oblige Madame de Franval not to concern herself with the faults of others, since her own would also have been revealed. In order to carry out this project Franval examined all the young men of his acquaintance and, after thinking things over carefully, he found that only Valmont seemed likely to prove useful to him.
Valmont was thirty years old, handsome, witty, imaginative, with no principles whatever, and as a result highly suitable for the role that was to be offered to him. Franval invited him to dinner one evening, and as they left the table he took him aside.
“My friend,” he said, “I have always deemed you to be worthy of me; now is the moment to prove that I have not been mistaken: I demand a proof of your feelings, but a very unusual proof.”
“What is all this? Explain yourself, dear man, and never doubt my anxiety to serve you!'
“What do you think of my wife?”
“She is delightful; and if you were not her husband, I'd have been her lover for a long time.”
“That is a most considerate remark, Valmont, but it does not move me.”
“Why not?”
“I'm going to surprise you, it is precisely because you like me, precisely because I am Madame de Franval's husband that I demand you to become her lover.”
“Are you mad?”
“No, but I'm whimsical, capricious, you've known me to be like this for a long time, I want virtue to come to grief and I would like it to be you who takes her in the snare.”
“What an outrageous idea!”
“Don’t say a word, this is a masterpiece of reasoning.”
“What! You want me to? “Yes, I want it, I demand it, and I cease to regard you as my friend if you refuse me this favor, I will look after you. I will satisfy all your needs, it will be to your advantage; and, as soon as I am quite certain of my fate, I shall, if necessary, throw myself at your feet to thank you for obliging me.”
“Franval, you cannot deceive me; there is something very unusual in all this. I will undertake nothing unless I know everything.”
“Yes, but I think you have some scruples, I suspect that you aren't yet intelligent enough to be capable of understanding all that is involved. You still have prejudices, you're still chivalrous, I wager? You will shudder like a child when I've told you everything, and you won't want to do anything anymore.”
“I, shudder? I am really amazed at your way of judging me: learn, my dear friend, that there is not an aberration in the world, not a single one, however irregular it might be, that is capable of upsetting me for a moment.”
“Valmont, have you cast eyes on Eugenie?”
“Your daughter?”
“Or my mistress, if you prefer?”
“Ah, you scoundrel, I understand you.”
“That's the first time in my life I've found you to be intelligent.”
“What is this? Tell me honestly, are you in love with your daughter?”
“Yes, my friend, like Lott I have always had such a great respect for the holy scriptures, I was always so convinced that one could gain heaven by emulating their heroes! Ah, my friend, the madness of Pygmalion no longer surprises me is the universe not full of these weaknesses? Was it not necessary to start in this way in order to populate the world? And if it was not evil then, can it have become so since? How preposterous! May not a pretty woman attract me because I made the mistake of bringing her into the world? Should the thing which ought to link me to her more closely become the reason for separating me from her? Should I look at her coldly because she resembles me because she is my own flesh and blood, because in her are united every foundation for the most ardent love?
Ah, what sophistries, how ridiculous! Let us leave to fools these absurd restraints, they are not made for souls like ours; the dominion of beauty and the sacred rights of love know nothing of futile human conventions; their ascendancy annihilates these just as the rays of the sun purify the earth from the fogs that enshroud her at night.
Let us trample underfoot these atrocious prejudices which have always been hostile to happiness; if they sometimes prevailed over reason, it was only at the expense of the most seductive pleasures, let us despise them forever.”
“You convince me,” replied Valmont, “and I completely agree that your Eugenie must be a delightful mistress, she is a more lively beauty than her mother, and if she does not possess, like your wife, quite that languor which takes hold of the heart in such a voluptuous way, she has that piquancy which overwhelms us, which seems in fact to subdue every possibility of resistance; if the mother appears to yield, the daughter demands; what the former permits, the latter offers, and I find this much more attractive.”
“Yet I am giving you not Eugenie, but her mother.”
“Now what reason leads you to do this?”
“My wife is jealous, she gets in my way, she criticises me! she wants to arrange a marriage for Eugenie, I must make her have faults in order to conceal my own; therefore you must have her, amuse yourself with her for some time, and betray her afterwards. I must surprise you in her arms, punish her or through this discovery I must purchase peace on both sides in our mutual errors, but no love, Valmont, keep cool, enslave her, and don't let yourself be dominated; if feelings come into it, my plans will be wrecked.”
“Have no fear, this would be the first time a woman has moved me.”
Our two scoundrels therefore concluded their arrangements, and it was resolved that within a few days Valmont would take Madame de Franval in hand, with full permission to do everything he wanted to achieve success, even the avowal of Franval's love, as the most powerful means of making this honest woman decide on revenge.
Eugenie, to whom the plan was confided, found it vastly entertaining; the infamous creature dared to say that if Valmont succeeded it was necessary, if her own happiness were to be as complete as possible, for her to be assured, through her own eyes, of her mother's downfall, for her to see this virtuous heroine yield incontestably to the pleasurable delights which she condemned with such severity.
Finally came the day when the most demure and unfortunate of women was not only to receive the most painful blow that could be dealt her, but was to be sufficiently outraged by her frightful husband to be abandoned, delivered by him to the man by whom he consented to be dishonoured. What madness! What scorn of all principles! For what purpose can nature create hearts as depraved as these? A few preliminary conversations had set this scene; Valmont, moreover, was friendly enough with Franval for the latter's wife, to whom this had already happened without risk, to be incapable of imagining that any danger would be incurred by remaining alone with him. They were all three in the drawing-room, when Franval rose.
“I must leave,” he said, an important business matter calls me, It's like putting you with your governess, madame,” he added with a laugh, 'leaving you with Valmont, he's so well behaved, but if he forgets himself, you must tell me, I don't like him enough yet to hand over my rights to him! And the shameless man went out.
After a few commonplace remarks, arising from Franval's Joke, Valmont said that he had found his friend changed during the last six months.
“I have not dared to ask him why,” he went on, “but he seems unhappy.”
“What is very certain,” replied Madame de Franval, “is the terrible unhappiness he is causing to others.”
“Oh heavens, what are you telling me? Has my friend been treating you badly?”
“If only that were the extent of our troubles!'
“Do please tell me, you know my ardor, my undying attachment.”
“A series of horrible disturbances, moral corruption, in fact errors of all kinds, would you believe it? The most advantageous marriage is suggested to us on behalf of our daughter, he does not want it.”
And at this point the skillful Valmont looked away, with the air of a man who understands, groans, and dare not explain himself.
“How is this, sir?” went on Madame de Franval, “are you not astonished by what I am saying? Your silence is very strange.”
“Ah, madame, is it not better to be silent than to say something that would bring despair to the person one loves?”
“What is this enigma, explain yourself, I entreat you.”
“How can I not shudder at opening your eyes,” said Valmont, impetuously seizing this charming woman's hand.
“Oh sir,” went on Madame de Franval with much animation, 'either say not another word, or explain yourself, I insist, you are putting me in a terrible position.”
“Much less so perhaps than the state to which you reduce me yourself, ' said Valmont, looking at the woman he was trying to seduce, his eyes ablaze with love.
“But what does all this mean, sir? You begin by alarming me, you make me want an explanation, next you dare to let me hear things which I should not and cannot tolerate, you remove from me the means of learning from you what torments me so cruelly. Speak, sir, speak, or you will reduce me to despair.”
“I shall be less obscure then, since you demand it, Madame, and although it costs me something to break your heart, learn the harsh reason for your husband's refusal to Monsieur de Colunce. Eugenie.”
“Well?”
“Well, Madame, Franval adores her; he is now not so much her father as her lover, and he would prefer to stop living rather than give up Eugenie.”
Madame de Franval did not hear this fatal explanation without a shock which made her lose her senses; Valmont hastened to go to her aid.
“You see, madam e, ' he went on, 'the cost of the avowal that you demanded. Not for anything in the world would I.”
“Leave me, sir, leave me,” said Madame de Franval, in a state difficult to describe; “after such violent shocks I need to be alone for a moment.”
“And would you want me to leave you in this state? I feel your sorrows too vividly in my heart not to ask your permission to share them. I inflicted this wound, let me heal it.”
“Franval in love with his daughter, gracious heaven! This creature whom I bore within me, it is she who rends his heart in such atrocious style! Such a fearful crime, ah, sir, is it possible? Are your really sure?”
“If I still had doubts about it, Madame, I would have kept silence, I would have preferred a hundred times to tell you nothing rather than upset you to no purpose; it was from your husband himself that I received proof of this infamy, he confided it to me; however that may be, be calm, I beg you; let us concern ourselves now with the means of breaking this intrigue rather than with those for explaining it; now, these means rest only with you.”
“Ah, tell me about them quickly, this crime horrifies me.”
“a husband with Franval's character, Madame, is not won back in any way by virtue; your hus band has little faith in the sage demeanor of women; he maintains that it is due to their pride or their temperament, the things they do to preserve themselves for us are done much more to satisfy themselves than to please or enslave us.
Forgive me, Madame, but I will not disguise from you that I believe more or less as he does on this subject; I never saw that virtues made a wife succeed in destroying her husband's vices; conduct more or less similar to Franval's would rouse him much more and would bring him back to you much more satisfactorily; jealousy would certainly result, and how many hearts have been restored to love through this constantly infallible method; your husband, then, seeing that this virtue, to which he is accustomed, and which he has the effrontery to despise, is due much more to reflection than to carelessness, will really learn to appreciate it in you, at the moment when he believes you capable of failing in it; he imagines, he dares to say that if you have never had any lovers it is because you have never been attacked; prove to him that it only depends on you to be so, to have your revenge for his wrongs and his scorn; perhaps you will do a little harm, in view of your stern principles, but how many evils you will have prevented, what a husband you will have converted ! And for a slight outrage to the goddess you revere, what a worshipper you will have brought back to her temple! Ah, Madame, I appeal only to your reason. Through the conduct that I dare recommend to you, you will bring Franval back forever, you will captivate him for good; he flees through contrariness, he is escaping for good; yes, Madame, I dare to say it, either you do not love your husband, or you must not hesitate.”
Madame de Franval, who was very surprised by these words, did not reply for some time; then she spoke, recalling Valmont's looks and his first remarks.
“Sir,” she said skillfully, “supposing that I take the advice you give me, on whom do you think I should cast my eyes in order to upset my husband more?”
“ah!” cried Valmont, not seeing the trap that was being set for him, “dear, divine friend, on the man who loves you best in all the world, on him who has adored you ever since he has known you, and who swears on his knees that he will die in your service.”
“Go, sir, go!' said Madame de Franval then in imperious fashion, “and never appear before me again; your trick is exposed; you only credit my husband with faults, that he is incapable of possessing in order to arrange your treacherous seduction more successfully; understand that even if he were guilty, the methods you suggest to me would be too repugnant for me to use them for one moment; a husband's errors can never justify those of a wife; for her they should become additional reasons for good conduct, so that the just and eternal God may find them in the afflicted cities that are about to suffer the effects of his anger, and may, if he can, turn aside from them the flames that are about to devour them.”
With these words Madame de Franval went out, and, asking for Valmont's servants, she obliged him to leave, very much ashamed of the first steps that he had taken.
Although this attractive woman had seen through the tricks of Franval's friend, the things he had said corresponded so well with her own fears and with those of her mother, that she decided to put everything into operation in order to convince herself of these hurtful truths. She went to see Madame de Farneille, told her what had happened and came back, determined to proceed as follows.
It has long been said, and very rightly so, that we have no greater enemies than our own servants; they are always jealous and envious and apparently try to lighten their burdens by attributing faults to us which place us beneath them and allow their vanity, for a short time at least, to dominate us in the way that fate has denied to them.
Madame de Franval had one of Eugenie's women bribed; a guaranteed payment, a pleasant future, the semblance of a good action, everything influenced this minion and she undertook, from the following night, to put Madame de Franval in a position where she would be unable to doubt her misfortune any longer.
The moment came. The unfortunate mother was introduced into a small room adjoining the apartment where every night her faithless husband violated both his own marriage ties and Heaven too. Eugenie was with her father; several candles still burned in a corner to illuminate the crime, the altar was prepared, the victim took her place, the high priest followed her. Madame de Franval no longer had any support except her despair, her angry love, her courage. She broke through the doors that held her back and rushed into the apartment; there she fell on her knees before the incestuous man.
“Oh,” she cried, addressing Franval, “You are breaking my heart, I did not deserve such treatment from you, you whom I still adore, whatever insults I receive from you, see my tears, and do not reject me; I ask you to spare this unfortunate girl, who, deceived by her weakness and seduced by you, believes she is finding happiness in the midst of shame and crime. Eugenie, Eugenie, do you want to thrust a sword into the bosom that gave you life? No longer be the accomplice in a crime whose horror is concealed from you! Come, hasten, my arms are ready to receive you. See your unfortunate mother, on her knees before you, begging you not to outrage both honor and nature at once. But if you refuse me both,” went on the heartbroken woman, raising a dagger to her heart, “this is the means by which I shall remove myself from the hurt you are trying to inflict upon me; I will spatter you with my blood and it is only over my wretched body that you will be able to consummate your crimes.”
That Franval's hardened soul could resist this sight, those who are beginning to know this scoundrel will easily believe; but that Eugenie did not yield in any way is inconceivable.
“Madame,” said this corrupt girl, with the most harsh indifference, “I do not regard it as reasonable on your part, I confess, that you should make an absurd scene in front of your husband; can he not do as he pleases? And if he approves of what I do, have you any right to criticize? Do we criticize your indiscretions with Monsieur de Valmont? Do we disturb your pleasures? Kindly respect ours, therefore, or do not be surprised that I am the first to press your husband to take the line which could force you to do so.”
At this moment Madame de Franval lost patience, all her anger turned against this unworthy creature who could forget herself so far as to speak to her like this, and, rising in a fury, she hurled herself upon her. But the hateful, cruel Franval, seizing his wife by the hair, dragged her in fury far away from his daughter and from the bedroom, and threw her forcefully down the stairs of the house, until she fell faint and bleeding at the door of one of her women who, awakened by the horrible noise, hastily removed her mistress from the furies of the tyrannical Franval, who had already come down in order to dispatch his unfortunate victim. She was taken to her rooms, locked in and cared for, while the monster, who had just treated her with such rage, rushed back to his detestable companion to spend the night as quietly as though he had not sunk lower than the fiercest beasts, through crimes so execrable, so likely to humiliate him, so horrible in fact that we blush at the necessity to reveal them.
No more illusions for the unfortunate Madame de Franval; she could no longer allow herself a single one; it was only too obvious that her husband's heart, that is to say the dearest possession of her life, had been taken away from her, and by whom? By her who owed her the greatest respect, and who had just spoken to her with the greatest insolence; she had also suspected that the whole of the Valmont intrigue was merely a horrible trap for the purpose of putting her in the wrong if possible, and, if not, to attribute faults to her, to inundate her with them, in order to balance and justify thereby the infinitely more serious ones which others dared to incur against her.
Nothing was more certain. Franval, informed of Valmont's failure, had pledged him to replace truth by imposture and indiscretion, to spread the story that he was Madame de Franval's lover; and it had been concluded that disgusting letters would be faked which would prove, in the least equivocal manner, the existence of the relation-ship to which this unfortunate wife had refused to lend herself.
Madame de Franval however, who was in despair, and even suffering from several injuries, fell seriously ill; her barbarous husband, who refused to see her, not even deigning to enquire about her health, left with Eugenie for the country, on the pretext that there was fever in the house and he did not wish to expose his daughter to it.
Valmont presented himself several times at Madame de Franval's door during her illness, but without being admitted once; closeted with her loving mother and Monsieur de Clervil, she saw nobody whatsoever, consoled by such dear friends, who were accustomed to have authority over her, she was restored to life by their care and after six weeks was in a state to see people. Franval then brought his daughter back to Paris and made arrangements with Valmont to provide themselves with weapons equal to those which Madame de Franval and her friends seemed about to level against them.
The villainous Franval went to see his wife as soon as he believed her to be in a fit state to receive him.
“Madame,” he said to her coldly, “You should have no doubts about the consideration I have shown over your health; I cannot disguise from you the fact that this alone is responsible for Eugenie's reticence; she had decided to bring the strongest charges against you concerning the way in which you treated her; however convinced she may be of the respect which a daughter owes to her mother, she cannot all the same be unaware that the mother puts herself in the worst possible position by hurling herself upon her daughter with a dagger in her hand; hastiness of this kind, Madame, could open the eyes of the government to your conduct and one day could not fail to cause injury to your liberty and your honor.”
“I did not expect this recrimination, sir,” replied Madame de Franval, “and when my daughter, seduced by you, renders herself simultaneously guilty of incest, adultery, licentiousness and the most hateful ingratitude towards her who brought her into the world, yes, I admit, I did not imagine that after this complex of horrors it would be for me to fear complaints: all your artifice and evil are required, sir, to excuse the crime with such audacity and accuse an innocent person.”
“I am not unaware, Madame, that the pretexts for your scene were the odious suspicions that your dare to form about me, but fantasies do not justify crimes; what you thought is false, but what you have done is unfortunately only too real. You are surprised at the reproaches that my daughter addressed to you concerning your irregular conduct only after the whole of Paris has done so; this state of affairs is so well known, the proofs are unfortunately so consistent, that those who speak about it are guilty at the most of imprudence but not of calumny.”
“I, sir,” said this honorable wife, rising indignantly, “I, an intrigue with Valmont? Gracious heavens, and you say that!' She burst into tears. “Ungrateful man! This is the price of my affection, this is the reward for having loved you so much: you are not content with outraging me so cruelly, it is not enough for you to seduce my own daughter, you must still dare to justify your crimes by attributing to me others which I regard as more terrible than death.
She collected herself again: “You have proofs of this intrigue sir, you say, bring them out, I demand that they be made public, I will force you to show them to everyone, if you refuse to show them to me.”
“No, Madame, I shall certainly not show them to everyone, a husband does not usually announce things of this kind; he bewails them and hides them as carefully as he can; but if you demand them, madame, I will certainly not refuse them to you. He then took a wallet out of his pocket. “Be seated,” he said, “this must be verified with calm, excitement and anger would do harm without convincing me; compose yourself then, I beg you, and let us discuss this coolly.”
Madame de Franval, who was perfectly convinced of her innocence, did not know what to think of these preparations and her surprise, mingled with fear, kept her in a state of frenzy.
“First of all, Madame,” said Franval, emptying one side of the wallet, “here is your entire correspondence with Valmont during the last six months or so. Do not accuse this young man of imprudence or indiscretion, he is no doubt too honorable to dare fail you on this point. But one of his servants, whose skill exceeds his master's attentiveness, found the secret of procuring for me these precious monuments to your exemplary conduct and your eminent virtue.” He fingered the letters which he scattered on the table.
“allow me,” he went on, 'to select from much of the usual chatter of a woman who is excited, by a very attractive man one letter which seemed to me more abandoned and even more decisive than the others. Here it is, Madame: “My tedious husband is taking supper this evening at his petite maison in the outer part of the town with that horrible creature, whom it is impossible I brought into the world; come, my dear, and console me for all the sorrows that those two monsters cause me. What am I saying? Are they not rendering me the greatest possible service at present, and will not this intrigue prevent my husband from noticing ours? Let him then tighten the knots as far as he wishes, but may he not attempt at least to sever those which link me to the only man I have really adored in all the world.”
“Well, Madame?”
“Well, sir, I admire you,” replied Madame de Franval, “every day adds to the incredible esteem that you deserve; and whatever great qualities I had recognized in you so far, I admit I did not yet know you possessed those of forger and calumniator.”
“Are you denying it, then?”
“Not at all; I only ask to be convinced; we will have judges appointed, experts, and if you agree, shall we ask for the most severe penalty to be inflicted on whichever one of us shall be found guilty?”
“That is what is called effrontery: well, I prefer that to sorrow. Let us proceed. That you have