The French government bought the Marquis de Sade's original 120 Days of Sodom manuscript worth £4million as an important piece of French literature. Getting the original items will be placed in French hands for safekeeping, and a national treasure for generations to come.
Donatien Alphonse Francois 'Marquis' de Sade (1740-1814) is a libertine who was persecuted and kept in prison for his outlandish views. Before and after the French Revolution he was not very popular.
He wa hailed as one of the more pronounced of the 18th-century erotic masterpieces which had troubled past over the centuries passing several owners. Procuring the genuine text was made possible by the intercession of a private benefactor who gave the money for the payment.
The manuscript for sale
In December 2017, the culture ministry of France had stepped in to prevent the manuscript from getting to an auction. It was declared a national treasure, preventing it from leaving the country, reported the Daily Mail.
According to the official state that purchased the Marquis' work, costing 4.55 million euros (£3.9million) to gain possession of it, he text has been a great influence on many writers since it was published.
The Marquis de Sade authored the scandalous book that described the hedonism of four rich libertines who want gratification above all. He developed this controversial work from bits of paper that were smuggled while imprisoned in the Bastille. Marquis de Sade's original 120 Days of Sodom manuscript was written during this time.
His masterwork was a 40-foot manuscript that looks so ordinary, it had 33 sheets of parchment put together as a scroll. To the ordinary observer, it was not much, but the contents were valuable.
It was relatively unknown to everyone when the German psychologist Iwan Bloch bought it for himself then published the contents in 1904. The controversial content was later banned in the UK, but in the 50's, there was more permission for the saucy book, cited the Daily Advent.
Its history of owners
Eventually, the government had involved itself. The manuscript was sold in a historic auction when its previous owner the French investment firm Aristophil. The firm was closed in a scandal two years before wherein all the money were taken from its investors.
The generous sum was given by Emmanuel Boussard, a former banker and founder of an investment fund, to let the French government buy the manuscript.
On July 14, 1789, the Bastille was entered at the start of the French Revolution, The Marquis was freed from his cell. His manuscript was left behind by the mob that entered the prison, noted WhatsNews2day.
Sade thought his creation was lost to the mob and wept over it. The unfinished manuscript was saved by a revolutionary and bought by the Marquis de Villeneuve-Trans secretly.
Soon, the manuscript will be a permanent part of the collection of the Arsenal Library in Paris, part of the BNF national library.
A total of 130,000 historic documents were taken by the French courts in 2015, which was part of an illegal pyramid scheme. Allegedly, Aristophil had a huge collection of French books and documents from history.
Marquis de Sade's original 120 Days of Sodom manuscript bears his influence in literature while Sade became synonymous with sadism. But France honors his cultural significance as an author.
