Justine & Juliette

Justine & Juliette, two young sisters who couldn’t be more different, are forced to part ways after the death of their parents and their upbringing under the teachings of God in a convent. Left to navigate life on their own, their odyssey spans over a dozen years, each sister facing her own unique fate. While one chooses the path of god, encountering suffering and hardship, the other embraces vice finding fortune in the darkness. A tale filled with blasphemy, violence and long philosophical yap sessions about the human nature.

Donatien Alphonse François, Comte de Sade, better known as the Marquis de Sade, was born in 1740 in Paris and died in 1814 in the Charenton asylum. He is infamous for his provocative writings and the scandalous life that was just as extreme as his novels. Raised in aristocratic France before the Revolution, he lived in a time caught between old traditions and new ideas of the Enlightenment. Sade rejected societal norms, pushing against moral and sexual boundaries.

Sade’s father was involved in a scandal when he had an affair with a princess, which led to his mother being married off to cover it up. Growing up in this environment, Sade was educated by a tutor known for his strange habits such as shooting birds off his roof for fun. At 13, Sade was introduced to sexual experimentation by a family mistress, and soon after, as a soldier in the Seven Years’ War, he witnessed the brutal reality of war. This experience shaped his cynical view of authority and power, which later influenced his writings.

At 23, Sade married Renée-Pélagie de Montreuil, largely due to family pressure. He was already known for cheating, but back then many men were. His sexual exploits became increasingly dark, and in 1763, he was accused of raping a servant Jeanne Testard and forcing her into blasphemous acts with a cross. This was just the beginning of a series of accusations. In 1768 another woman Rose Keller accused him of kidnapping and whipping her. At first, his in-laws worked tirelessly to cover up his actions, using their influence to suppress the scandal and keep him out of the public eye.

In 1769, a recently discovered letter from Anne-Prospère de Launay, the younger sister of Sade’s wife, reveals the depth of their relationship. Signed in her own blood, she swears eternal love to Sade after having surrendered her innocence to him. In his Provençal château, a triangular relationship unfolds between Sade and the two sisters.

By 1772, after more accusations, including charges of poisoning and sodomy, Sade was sentenced to death, while being absent. As his behavior grew more extreme, the efforts of his in-laws to protect him were no longer enough. They fell back to a lettre de cachet, a royal order that could imprison someone without trial, to silence the growing controversy and protect him from execution.

Although Sade managed to escape at first, he was captured in 1777 and imprisoned for thirteen years. He spent time in both Vincennes and later the Bastille. During his imprisonment, Sade wrote some of his most famous works. His novel Justine was completed in 1787 and published in 1791. He wrote in small handwriting to avoid drawing attention to his activities.

Thanks to a decree from the National Assembly in 1790, which abolished lettres de cachet, Sade was released and became involved in politics. In 1793, he was appointed as a judge in the revolutionary tribunal of Paris and president of the revolutionary section Section des Piques. Followed by a new, more explicit version of Justine and Juliette in 1797.

Two weeks before the storming of the Bastille, it’s rumored that Sade shouted to the crowds outside, They are killing the prisoners in here! After that, Sade was moved to the Charenton asylum. Historians believe this outburst played a role in stirring up the storming of the Bastille in 1789, a key event in the French Revolution.

In 1801 under Napoleon Bonaparte, Sade was arrested again. The police raided his publisher’s house and later Sade’s own home, burning books of Justine and Juliette. Sade was arrested again without trial. In 1803, after an incident involving fellow prisoners, he was transferred to another prison. Eventually, his family secured his move to the Charenton asylum, where he remained until his death.

Despite the shock his works caused, de Sade became synonymous with extreme sexual violence and after his death his books were banned. In 1886, German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing created the term sadism after him in his work Psychopathia Sexualis. For much of the 19th century, he was forgotten, seen as a figure of scandal.

In the 20th century, the Surrealists reclaimed de Sade as a figure of radical freedom. Philosophers and writers like Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault, and Albert Camus analyzed his works, viewing him as a critic of power and morality. Sade’s works are still read and debated — whether viewed as the product of a depraved mind or as revolutionary ideas that challenged the foundations of society and human nature.

These novels offer grounds to assume that a bear would be the better choice.

»The tigers in the jungle could not be more cruel.«

I came across Justine and Juliette through discussions on philosophy and French literature. The story of two sisters, polar opposites in nature, immediately caught my attention. That sibling dynamic is a well known motif — think of Cain and Abel from the Bible, Dante and Vergil in Devil May Cry or Vash and Knives in Trigun.

But Sade’s approach to this dynamic was unlike anything I had encountered before. What I didn’t expect was the sheer unsettling intensity of the depictions of violence, I had no idea how deeply Sade would go into it and with what level of explicitness. Considering his name is where the term sadism comes from, I really should have seen it coming, but somehow I expected something softer. And for the sake of decency, I won’t delve further into this territory here.

Naively like Justine I thought there would be a redemptive twist. After 100, then 200 and 300 pages of escalating horror, I realized I was too far in to turn back. Yet, the redemption arc I had hoped for (spoiler) never came.

Reading it was a transformative experience. Sade’s writing doesn’t attempt to eroticize imo, as some might initially think; rather, it dissects the acts with such detachment that they become more repulsive than arousing. The grotesque sexual acts are described with such precision they almost feel like technical experiments: You sit here, I stay here, he moves over there, she stays in the corner, then we do that bla bla.

Unlike typical adult content meant to arouse, which you read with one hand, as Rousseau said, Sade’s work is designed to provoke. However, even that I struggle to fully accept, because the repetition and monotony of the acts seem more like obsession. For readers drawn to this type of literature, it’s unlikely they would find much pleasure here. And it’s certainly not something I would recommend to the current Dark Romance trend community on BookTok. The only one who could have gotten any real satisfaction from it was probably the Marquis himself.

It becomes interesting when you ask where he drew his inspiration from. The inspo behind his works seems to be a combination of his own experiences, ideas and an extensive reading of history. His books frequently reference historical figures, such as Emperor Nero. Nero was not only a cruel misanthrope but indulged in horrific excesses, such as castrating a young boy whom he took as a wife. He forced his mentor, the famous philosopher Seneca, to take his own life. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Looking at ancient history, it becomes clearer how Sade might have arrived at such ideas — without the need for today’s pornography or adult magazines.

»It is said, [...] that Cleopatra, one of the greatest gourmands of antiquity, had the habit of repeatedly having an enema before every meal.« »Nero did the same [...] I occasionally do it myself and find it quite beneficial.«

A common thought when reading Sade might be: Why isn’t this forbidden? Why hasn’t these books been banned or burned? When faced with the question of whether we should burn Sade’s works, like the French did at the time, Simone de Beauvoir gave a detailed answer in one of her essays. Conclusion: No, we should read and analyze them. And so, we have to look beyond the surface to understand what can be explored — between the violence and long philosophical rants.

The narrator in Justine is judgmental: he doesn’t glorify the characters. He makes it clear that the abusers are monstrous & evil. Sometimes (too rarely tho) he interrupts passages and draws a curtain over situations to protect the reader. On the other hand, he has to tell us the story because Justine herself would not tell it with such brutality — she would spare us with the details.

Beyond the graphic depictions of cruelty, Sade’s works also dive into philosophy. He doesn’t see bad habit as a mistake or moral failure, but as a part of human nature — and a source of power. Another layer to consider is the autobiographical elements of his work. As you read, it’s hard to ignore how Sade’s own life and experiences are woven into the story.

»A novel’s character is never the author who created it. But the author might very well be all of his characters at once.«
— Albert Camus in L'homme révolté

Sade is Justine — the victim, imprisoned and suffering. He is also the sadists who torment Justine with wealth and power. He is also Juliette — indulging in excess and cruelty. And just like Juliette, he gets away with it for a long time until, like her, he is forced to flee. His life, marked by exile, imprisonment, obsession with suffering and control pours through the pages of these books. While today he would be sentenced to prison with psychological treatment back then he was simply locked away. Camus writes about this in an essay on Marquis de Sade:

»27 years in prison do not reconcile the mind. Such long confinement either creates slaves or murderers, and sometimes both in the same person. If the soul is strong enough to build a morality in the midst of misery that does not bow to such subjugation, it is often a morality of control. Every ethic of solitude presupposes power. In this regard, as the society's cruel treatment was met with cruelty in return, Sade is an example.«

The novels may struggle with balancing the story and lengthy passages where nothing really happens, but it succeeds in depicting Justine's suffering. The author’s ability to empathize with her is on point.

»Justine could not hold back her pain at being violated by those from whom she had hoped for the greatest help. Her tears flowed abundantly, the ceiling rang with the screams of her agony. She rolled on the ground, tore out her hair, and struck her chest as she longed for death.«

In Justine, the term cannibalist is used metaphorically to represent the consumption of the weak by the powerful. In Juliette, we meet a literal cannibal, a man who embodies the darkest recesses of Sade’s worldview. Justine is a philosophical argument wrapped in horror; Juliette is the horror fully unleashed. There is a surprising moment when Saint Fond suggests exterminating two thirds of the French population through famine. Even Juliette hesitates at this idea. This moment of restraint offers a rare turning point, although it quickly devolves back into the extreme. Still, this sequence stood out to me:

»It was late and I went to bed. For a long time, I couldn’t fall asleep; a terrible dream disturbed me. I believed I saw a dreadful person setting my house on fire. In the midst of this blaze a youthful being appeared, trying to save me. But it perished in the flames. Half dreaming, I awoke. The prophecy of the sorceress was before me. 'Where the end of the crime lies,' she had said, 'there is the beginning of misfortune.' Oh heaven, I am lost, for I ceased to sin for a moment. [...] Now misfortune devours me. The woman I saw in my dream was Justine, my sad sister, with whom I had broken due to her virtue. She appears to me, and sin weakens in my heart.«

Unfortunately, in Juliette, there isn’t much interaction between the two sisters. Juliette delivers a monologue, and whenever Justine says something, she is shut down by the other listeners.

Though Justine is presented as a victim — a suffering martyr throughout the story — she emerges as a strong female protagonist. No matter how many times she is brutalized, she continues to stand, to hope, to believe. Of course it's naive. But her empathy, despite the horrors she faces, sets her apart from the other characters. We feel for her as she sacrifices everything for others and remains in her belief in something greater than herself. Was that Sade's intention? Prolly not.

»I’d rather sacrifice a thousand lives than not do everything for a woman whose feelings, past seem so similar to mine.«

Sade’s low opinion for religion is evident throughout his works, as the religious characters often commit the worst acts. He's an atheist with a deep knowledge of the Bible, as his ability to critique it with such detail suggests. De Sade exhibits the typical behavior of an atheist to convince you, simply by not stopping talking about it. At the same time, he sharply critiques the ruling class. He creates a world where the powerful and wealthy exploit their influence, evade justice, and act purely in self-interest — a theme that remains relevant today nodiddy.

»So is the human being when his wealth, influence, and social position place him above the law.«

It’s interesting that this awareness of his own evil, the very thing that led him to prison in the first place, seems to make him conscious of his actions. This might be why some scientists believe he was never mentally ill. For Sade, freedom can only be achieved when we give free rein to our darkest instincts, but this freedom only applies to the stronger. This idea occasionally surfaces in Juliette, where villains devour each other, though, realistically speaking, it happens too rarely to truly embody the concept.

The case is unique because in addition to the circumstances de Sade lived in and his mental state, he was also educated and a skilled writer. To his credit, Juliette features a bisexual main character alongside many others with diverse sexualities at a time when homosexuality was illegal. There are characters with different gender traits, including trans individuals. However, despite this diversity, all of them are portrayed as evil. The few good people who help our heroine Justine can be counted on one hand.

His influence extends beyond literature, shaping philosophy, film and the (made up) horror subgenre Existing as a woman during 99% of human. Goethe read Justine while working on Faust and parallels can be seen in its themes of power abuse. Thinkers like Nietzsche engaged with his ideas of moral while filmmakers such as Pasolini (Salò) explored his themes through film. In that sense, his work is worth exploring, especially from a historical perspective, but be cautios.

If you’re considering reading Justine and Juliette, ask yourself why. Had I known what I was getting into, I might have skipped it. I only finished it because I wanted to know what happens to Justine in the end and whether we get a happy ending. The experience wasn’t enjoyable. It’s something that forces you to deal with its ideas, whether you want to or not.