The characters of Sade’s novels use to comment crimes which they at length explained, commented on and above all legitimated. These views led the critics to establish a connection between the marquis and the philosophers of the Eighteenth Century and even to liken him to them. This article shows that there is no grounds for this connection and proves that Sade didn’t support but - quite the reverse - condemned the arguments of the philosophers and of their epigones, which instilled into French people of the Eighteenth Century the illusion that all is justifiable and permitted.
Sade; Eighteenth Century; Age of Enlightenment; libertine philosophy; moral standards; sexuality