ily or involuntarily, the object against which these processes
are directed."[87] This definition of sadism as found in De Sade's works
is thus, more especially by its final clause, a very much wider conception
than the usual definition.

Donatien Alphonse Francois, Marquis De Sade, was born in 1740 at
Paris in the house of the great Conde. He belonged to a very
noble, ancient, and distinguished Provencal family; Petrarch's
Laura, who married a De Sade, was one of his ancestors, and the
family had cultivated both arms and letters with success. He was,
according to Lacroix, "an adorable youth whose delicately pale
and dusky face, lighted up by two large black [according to
another account blue] eyes, already bore the languorous imprint
of the vice which was to corrupt his whole being"; his voice was
"drawling and caressing"; his gait had "a softly feminine grace."
Unfortunately there is no authentic portrait of him. His early
life is sketched in letter iv of his _Aline et Valcourt_. On
leaving the College-Louis-le-Grand he became a cavalry officer
and went through the Seven Years' War in Germany. There can be
little doubt that the experiences of his military life, working
on a femininely vicious temperament, had much to do with the
development of his perversion. He appears to have got into
numerous scrapes, of which the details are unknown, and his
father sought to marry him to the daughter of an aristocratic
friend of his own, a noble and amiable girl of 20. It so chanced
that when young De Sade first went to the house of his future
wife only her younger sister, a girl of 13, was at home; with her
he at once fell in love and his love was reciprocated; they were
both musical enthusiasts, and she had a beautiful voice. The
parents insisted on carrying out the original scheme of marriage.
De Sade's wife loved him, and, in spite of everything, served his
interests with Griselda-like devotion; she was, Ginisty remarks,
a saint, a saint of conjugal life; but her love was from the
first only requited with repulsion, contempt, and suspicion.
There were, however, children of the marriage; the career of the
eldest--an estimable young man who went into the army and also
had artistic ability, but otherwise had no community of tastes
with his father--has been sketched by Paul Ginisty, who has also