Crime is to the passions what nervous fluid is to life: it sustains them, it supplies their strength.

Alternating title usage indicates that titular hierarchy (below duc et pair) was notional; theoretically the marquis title was granted to noblemen owning several countships but its use by men of dubious lineage caused its disrepute. He was arrested there and imprisoned in the Château de Vincennes. Similarly Camille Paglia argued that Sade can be best understood as a satirist responding "point by point" to Rousseau's claims that society inhibits and corrupts mankind's innate goodness: Sade wrote in the aftermath of the French Revolution when Rousseauist Jacobins instituted the bloody Reign of Terror.

Donatien Alphonse François Marquis de Sade (French: [maʁki də sad]; 2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814) was a French aristocrat revolutionary politician philosopher and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle. He was a proponent of extreme freedom unrestrained by morality religion or law. During the French Revolution he was an elected delegate to the National Convention.