Editing The 120 Days of Sodom (section)

==Manuscript history==
Sade wrote ''The 120 Days of [[Sodom and Gomorrah|Sodom]]'' over 37 days in 1785 while he was imprisoned in the [[Bastille]]. Being short of writing materials and fearing confiscation, he wrote it in tiny writing on a continuous roll of paper, made up of individual small pieces of paper smuggled into the prison and glued together. The result was a scroll {{Convert|12|m}} long and {{Convert|12|cm|in}} wide that Sade would hide by rolling it tightly and placing it inside his cell wall. As revolutionary tension grew in Paris, Sade incited a riot among the people gathered outside the Bastille when he shouted to them that the guards were murdering inmates; as a result, two days later on 4 July 1789, he was transferred to the asylum at Charenton, "naked as a worm" and unable to retrieve the novel in progress. Sade believed the work was destroyed when the [[Storming the Bastille|Bastille was stormed and looted]] on 14 July 1789, at the beginning of the [[French Revolution]]. He was distraught over its loss and wrote that he "wept tears of blood" in his grief.<ref name="Smith2015">{{Cite magazine |last=Perrottet |first=Tony |date=February 2015 |title=Who Was the Marquis de Sade? |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/who-was-marquis-de-sade-180953980/?all |magazine=[[Smithsonian Magazine]] |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=[[Smithsonian Institution]] |access-date=25 January 2015}}</ref>

[[File:Deatail of The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinism.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Detail of ''The 120 Days of Sodom'']]
However, the scroll was found and removed by a citizen named Arnoux de Saint-Maximin two days before the storming.<ref name="Smith2015" /> Historians know little about him or why he took the manuscript.<ref name="Smith2015" /> It was passed to the Villeneuve-Trans family and sold to a German collector around 1900.{{Snf|Phillips|2001|p=33}} It was first published in 1904<ref name="Smith2015" /> by the Berlin psychiatrist and sexologist [[Iwan Bloch]] (who used a pseudonym, "Dr. Eugen Dühren", to avoid controversy).<ref name="Willsher, Kim">{{Cite news |last=Willsher |first=Kim |date=April 3, 2014 |title=Original Marquis de Sade scroll returns to Paris |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/03/marquis-de-sade-scroll-120-days-sodom-paris |access-date=April 6, 2014}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |date=2021-02-22 |title=The 120 Days of Sodom: France seeks help to buy 'most impure tale ever written' |url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/feb/22/the-120-days-of-sodom-france-seeks-help-to-buy-marquis-de-sade-manuscript |access-date=2021-02-22 |website=The Guardian |language=en}}</ref> Viscount [[Charles de Noailles]], whose wife [[Marie-Laure de Noailles|Marie-Laure]] was a direct descendant of Sade, bought the manuscript in 1929.<ref name="sciolino5">{{Cite news |last=Sciolino |first=Elaine |date=January 22, 2013 |title=It's a Sadistic Story, and France Wants It |page=C1 |work=[[The New York Times]] |location=New York City |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/books/frances-national-library-hopes-to-buy-sades-120-days.html |access-date=December 5, 2018 |url-access=limited}}</ref> It was inherited by their daughter Natalie, who kept it in a drawer on the family estate. She would occasionally bring it out and show it to guests, among them the writer [[Italo Calvino]].<ref name="sciolino5" /> Natalie de Noailles later entrusted the manuscript to a friend, [[Jean Grouet]]. In 1982, Grouet betrayed her trust and smuggled the manuscript into Switzerland, where he sold it to [[Gérard Nordmann]] for $60,000.<ref name="sciolino5" /> An international legal wrangle ensued, with a French court ordering it to be returned to the Noailles family, only to be overruled in 1998 by a Swiss court that declared it had been bought by the collector in good faith.<ref name="Willsher, Kim" />

It was first put on display near Geneva in 2004. [[Gérard Lhéritier]] bought the scroll for his investment company for [[€]]7 million, and in 2014 put it on display at his [[Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits]] (Museum of Letters and Manuscripts) in Paris.<ref name="Smith2015" /><ref name="Willsher, Kim" /><ref name=":2" /> In 2015, Lhéritier was charged with fraud for allegedly running his company as a [[Ponzi scheme]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite news |last=Paris |first=Angelique Chrisafis |date=March 6, 2015 |title=France's 'king of manuscripts' held over suspected pyramid scheme fraud |language=en-GB |work=[[The Guardian]] |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/06/frances-king-of-manuscripts-held-over-suspected-pyramid-scheme |access-date=August 31, 2017 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> The manuscripts were seized by French authorities and were due to be returned to their investors before going to auction.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Noce |first=Vincent |date=16 March 2017 |title=Bankrupt French company's huge stock of precious manuscripts to go on sale |work=The Art Newspaper |url=http://theartnewspaper.com/market/world-s-largest-private-stock-of-manuscripts-to-go-on-sale-/ |access-date=31 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170322195843/http://theartnewspaper.com/market/world-s-largest-private-stock-of-manuscripts-to-go-on-sale-/ |archive-date=2017-03-22}}</ref> In December 2017, the French government recognised the original manuscript as a National Treasure giving the government time to raise funds to purchase it.<ref name=":2" /><ref name="nationaltreasure">{{Cite news |date=19 December 2017 |title=De Sade's 120 Days of Sodom declared French national treasure |publisher=RFI |url=http://en.rfi.fr/culture/20171219-de-sade-s-120-days-sodom-declared-french-national-treasure |access-date=23 December 2017}}</ref><ref name="freytas">{{Cite news |last=de Freytas-Tamura |first=Kimiko |date=19 December 2017 |title=Halting Auction, France Designates Marquis de Sade Manuscript a 'National Treasure' |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/19/world/europe/france-marquis-de-sade-treasure.html |access-date=2017-12-19}}</ref> The government offered tax benefits to donors to help buy the manuscript for the [[National Library of France]] by sponsoring a sum of €4.55&nbsp;million.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Avis d'appel au mécénat d'entreprise pour l'acquisition par l'Etat d'un trésor national dans le cadre de l'article 238 bis-0 A du code général des impôts - Légifrance |url=https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000043149579 |access-date=2021-02-22 |website=www.legifrance.gouv.fr}}</ref> The French Government acquired the manuscript in July 2021.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Flood |first=Alison |date=2021-07-13 |title=€4.55m Marquis de Sade manuscript acquired for French nation |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/13/marquis-de-sade-manuscript-acquired-for-french-nation-120-days-of-sodom?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other120-days-of-sodom?amp_gsa=1&amp_js_v=a9&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16579653877235&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fbooks%2F2021%2Fjul%2F13%2Fmarquis-de-sade-manuscript-acquired-for-french-nation-120-days-of-sodom |website=The Guardian}}</ref>