In 1912 a well-known man-about-town, a certain Armand de Rochefort, was invited to a special theatrical performance at Charenton, just outside Paris. This was a centre for the healing of the insane which was much favoured by aristocratic families who needed to put their relatives into care. During the pre-theatre dinner Rochefort was very impressed by an elderly man sitting near to him who had the venerable air that imposed respect and whose conversation was marked by a spiritual verve and richness of wit. But when he learned that ‘this amiable man’ was the Marquis de Sade, he fled from his presence. He knew him as the author of a wretched novel ‘in which all the deliriums of crime were presented under the guise of love.’

Rochefort's reaction might well be paralleled by people today. The idea of being ‘at home with the Marquis de Sade’ is disturbing, to say the least. Although his collected works have achieved eminent respectability by being published in the Pléiade edition by Gallimard and by distinguished English and American publishers, there is still a tendency, even among young people, to associate his name with clandestine editions of proclaimed erotica. After all, as Francine du Plessix Gray reminds us in the foreword to her excellent book, At Home with the Marquis de Sade Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, is one of the few men whose names have spawned adjectives—in Sade's case, one that is associated with unpleasantness.

From the material here assembled it is easy to see how de Sade can be understood in terms of the society of his times. In spite of the refined hedonism that is associated with the paintings of Watteau and Boucher, cruelty was everywhere. The Comte de Charolais, whom de Sade knew well during his childhood, used to indulge in the sport of killing peasants and setting fire to the underwear of the Marquise de Saint-Sulpice. Later de Sade coincides with the Revolution and he is identified with the Terror, the cult of excess and the rejection of convention. Or he can be made to fit in to the phenomenon of individuals who believe that they can find an ideal life in some isolated community, making their own rules in defiance of so-called civilisation. Thus de Sade can be portrayed as feudal, élitist, irresponsible; or he is the apostle of absolute freedom; or he lives apart in his own privileged harmony.

Francine du Plessix Gray presents a very full portrait of de Sade, with his imprisonments, his writings, his beliefs, and all the turmoil of family, finances and scandal that only concluded by his peaceful death in 1814, at the age of 74. But she lays particular emphasis on the importance of two women—his wife, Renée-Pélagie Cordier de Montreuil, and his mother-in-law, Marie-Madeleine de Montreuil, known as La Présidente, since her husband was the honorary president of an important court of law.

Pélagie had been, for many years, the most devoted of wives. She had encouraged de Sade in his literary ambitions, she had believed in his abilities and she had fought for his freedom. She was not beautiful. Her education had been neglected. De Sade, in prison, would ask her to obtain information about the countries he was writing about, although her abilities were very limited and as a consequence the narratives of foreign lands are haphazard and contain surprising details, such as the lilies, jonquils and tulips that line the rivers of Africa. But she read and criticised his work. He confided in her and told her about his most outrageous acts. In coded letters (which are amply quoted), he records and enumerates his sexual activities and intentions.

La Présidente was totally different. At first she was delighted to think that her somewhat plain daughter (for so she described her) should have married into a noble family, and not just the ordinary nobility, since the de Sades, through the Marquis's mother, could claim to be descended from Saint Louis, the royal family itself. But La Présidente, who had a strong personality, developed a vicious hatred for her son-in-law. He seduced her youngest daughter, her most treasured child whom she was grooming for a brilliant social marriage. In one letter she claimed that she had prepared herself so as to accept absolutely anything from Monsieur de Sade, but she had not imagined that his demented passions could lead ‘to such excessive indecency.’ In some ways, Pélagie is the heroine of this book. When de Sade was released from prison on 1 April 1790, he found that his wife of nearly 27 years did not want to see him. Francine du Plessix Gray wonders why she came to this decision. Was it simply exhaustion, did her mother La Présidente resume her dominance, was it religion, did she fear that the return of her husband would threaten her three children? Most importance is given to the events of 1789. ‘We are menaced every day with carnage,’ she wrote, and as she was gripped by the ‘Great Fear’ that had seized the nation, she saw in de Sade, her husband, the equivalent of the forces that were destroying the world to which she belonged.

But if Pélagie can be understood, how about de Sade? The author is impressive as she reviews the monstrous orgies of his writings and outlines the dual reactions of attraction and revulsion, fascination and boredom, that they inspire. Is one justified in wondering whether, in spite of her learning and shrewdness, the author does not remain somewhat mystified? De Sade, as she says, was always an actor. But when was he himself?