Donatien-Alphonse-François, marquis de SADE. L.A., [La Coste December 1774], to his lawyer Gaspard Gaufridy, in Apt; 3pages small in-4, address. "We shall therefore expect you on Tuesday, my dear lawyer [...] I beg you to come early, at least for dinner, i.e. at three o'clock; you will oblige me to observe this same custom whenever you come to see us this winter; here is the reason. We have decided for a thousand reasons to see very few people this winter. The result is that I spend the evening in my study, and md [madame] and her wives occupy themselves in an adjoining room until bedtime, so that when night falls, the château is irreversibly shut down, the fire extinguished, the kitchen no longer working, and often there are no provisions. Consequently, it's a real nuisance not to arrive for dinner, and a nuisance in any case. We know you to be too honourable not to submit to this little gene, which we shall seek all the less to reform in your favour, as it saves us two or three hours more of the pleasure of being with you". This is followed by a minute from a letter concerning the Marquise de Sade's subscription to a gazette. Finally, Sade refers to a domestic dispute over a misplaced book, which "has just aroused a carteronic, and consequament gothonic altercation which aims at great consequences, for one wants one's leave. Your presence is still needed here to calm things down"... Correspondence (Lély), XLV.