For a certain subset of us – the literary degenerates, the philosophical deviants, the connoisseurs of exquisite moral wreckage – this date marks the anniversary of an exit.

There’s something perversely satisfying about the fact that Donatien Alphonse François – the Marquis de Sade, aristocrat, pornographer, philosopher, lunatic, prophet of the flesh, the ayatollah of rock’n’rolla – died on this day in 1814, tucked away in the asylum at Charenton like a dangerous animal finally caged, though still scribbling until the last.  The man whose name became a synonym for deriving pleasure from another’s pain.  A name whispered in polite society with the same horrified glee as a newly discovered plague.  The Marquis.  The original.  He went out not with guillotines or mobs with pitchforks and torches, but with the slow rot of institutional confinement.

This wasn’t a gentle passing.  This was the extinguishing of a human firestorm, a man who spent a significant portion of his 74 years (something like three decades, if you’re keeping score) locked away.  Kings, revolutionaries, and emperors all took one look at this dude and his…proclivities…and decided he was better off behind very thick walls.  And what did our boy de Sade do with all that quiet time?  He wrote.  His novels – Justine, Juliette, 120 Days of Sodom – are endurance tests, labyrinths of cruelty and desire where the reader is both voyeur and victim.  They are quite obscene, of course, but also philosophical in the most unnerving sense: they ask whether freedom means anything of it doesn’t include the freedom to be monstrous.

Picture him, dear reader: powdered wig askew, ink-stained fingers, eyes glittering with the manic glee of someone who knows he’s already been damned and is determined to make damnation art.  And when he finally died – December 2, 1814 – the world didn’t breathe easier so much as pretended not to notice.  Because to notice is to admit that the abyss he described is still there, yawning under our feet.  He argued that the ultimate liberty was the freedom to pursue one’s own pleasure, no matter the consequence, no matter the cost to others.  He posited a universe that was not merely indifferent but actively hostile, and the only sane response was to become an engine of pure, unadulterated will.

And so, on this day in 1814, the engine finally sputtered out.  The great blasphemer fell silent.  He left behind a last will and testament that requested his body be left to rot in a forest, his grave unmarked, so that all trace of him would vanish from the memory of men.

Nice try, Marquis.

Because here we are, centuries down the line, and the shadow he cast is longer than ever.  His name is a household word and a psychological term.  His ideas, scrubbed clean and repackaged for academic consumption, bubble up in philosophy seminars and late-night dorm room debates about the nature of freedom.  The man who wanted to be forgotten is utterly unforgettable.  He’s the abyss that, when you stare into it, not only stares back but asks if you’ve got any good ideas for a Tuesday afternoon.

So pour one out for the old pervert.  If you need an entry-level ticket to the madhouse, I highly recommend you check out Quills (starring Geoffrey Rush in all his unhinged glory) – it’s as riotously entertaining as it is sharp.

He was a literary terrorist, dear reader.  And in the sanitized, terrified, and terminally boring landscape of our current moment, you have to admit: there was a certain horrifying magnificence to his ride.  He went all the way.

N.P.: “An American Murder Song” – American Murder Song