Le Marquis de Sade par Andre Breton

The Marquis de Sade was born in the Condé palace, Paris, to Comte Jean-Baptiste François Joseph de Sade and Marie-Eléonore de Maillé de Carman, cousin and Lady-in-waiting to the Princess of Condé. He was educated by an uncle, the abbé de Sade. Later, he attended Jesuit lycée, then pursued a military career, becoming Colonel of a Dragoon regiment, and fighting in the Seven Years' War. In 1763, on returning from war, he courted a rich magistrate's daughter, but her father rejected his suit, and, instead, arranged a marriage to his elder daughter, Renée-Pélagie de Montreuil; that marriage engendered two sons and a daughter.[1] In 1766, he had a private theatre built in his castle at Lacoste in Provence. In January 1767, his father died.