Donatien-Alphonse-François, marquis de SADE. 2L.A.S., [donjon de Vincennes May 25 and June 1, 1778], to his mother-in-law the présidente de Montreuil; 3pages and 1 1/2 pages in-4. Before his transfer to Aix to stand trial. May 25. "Si vous m'avais pas fait l'honneur de m'ecrire, Madame, je n'hazarderois pas de vous importuner par une nouvelle epitre, apres le mepris dans lequel vous tenez celles que vous ont également adressés mon desespoir et ma sensibilité". She refused to receive his sealed letter. She now sends him "advice sent by your family" [Bontoux], which is in fact sent by the government: "to hear this man tell it, Madame, I no longer have anyone in the world to meddle with me, it's the police, it's the government... No more support in my wife's parents, I must now rely only on the care of the state. [...] My tears flow too abundantly [...] and the pain of having lost my father and my mother is renewed too vividly in my heart lorce that after this terrible misfortune for me I no longer have the hope of giving back to Mr de Montreuil and to you names so dear to me [...] And so here I am, the child of the government when I only wanted to be yours. [...] If past times could be reborn, how much your motives for hatred would perhaps soften, and how much I dare believe at least, you would finish making someone so unhappy who has never stopped loving you"... He begs for mercy: "after six years of misfortune, two detentions, and 16 months of horrible solitude, I will see myself reduced to such extreme misery, that I will be forced to regret the odious walls of my prison, which despite my cries and tears, they will (I feel) come to tear me away to make a spectacle of me in the middle of my province, to complete the ruin and loss of my reputation and honor, and to precipitate me into another dungeon confused with the criminals destined to perish on the wheel"... Etc. June 1st. "It is to you myself, Madame, that I have heard it said a thousand times, that the smallest pronouncement of any kind from a parliament would fletch a man forever; so don't expose me to it, I implore you, and remember that you promised me that my head and my honor would be safe; let me suffer here all that I have to suffer (however hard my position may be) so that when I appear there I can be washed clean immediately, and there will be no tail". Even if the parlement of Aix does not enforce anything, and the king commutes, "le deshoneur sera prononcé"... He dreads going to Aix, where his father already had enemies, as well as the conditions of the journey... He asks for "all the papers of this affair, the desistement of the daughters, the deposition of the apoticaires, the memoir you were good enough to send me three years ago with a copy of the procedure, and the requete &c"....