Beasts of the Bastille
Part 7
For Part 1 of this serial, read HERE
For the previous part read HERE
The Story So Far - We are in the fading days of Ancien Régime France, a time of great upheaval. Until now we have followed the correspondence of twins Joseph-Marie, a witch, and Marie-Joseph, a deserting soldier.
But now the twins are together and we switch to other forms of correspondence and documentation.
The storm winds of revolution are approaching fast …
PART 2 – The Twin Dossier
1 July, 1789
Colonel Perrin,
It is with deep sorrow and consternation that I write to you of the unsettling events which recently occurred in Lyon and which I have had the unfortunate and monumental task of investigating. These are horrors I know not how to describe. The ordeal began on 30 April when one Father Lazare Mathis of the local parish took into custody the accused witch Marie-Joseph Beauchêne. I have read the good Father’s journal and his accounts of the interrogations he had with the accused are assiduous. His dealings with the accused witch were of the most pious and adhere strictly to authorized methods for gaining confessions. Yet the witch persisted in her innocence, though Father Mathis was convinced of her guilt and heard growlings and snarling emanations from her cell on several occasions. Three days ago the esteemed Archbishop Descoteaux arrived in Lyon to assist in obtaining a confession. He brought with him Father Laporte, an expert in the rite of exorcism. According to Father Mathis’s journals, he believed the woman to be housing a wolf demon and thought it best to exorcise the spirit.
It is here I must admit, I am unable to explain what happened after the Archbishop arrived. I can only report what I see before me, all else would be vain speculation. The local authorities have done what they could to keep the scene as they found it, for that I am grateful, and yet… I have had such nightmares since arriving. But that should not trouble you, Colonel. Perhaps I am only forestalling in describing the atrocity placed before me. To the task.
The entire jail had a most foul stench upon my arrival. True, they often do, but this was such to make one’s stomach give up its contents, if you’ll permit my saying. As I approached the cell wherein the woman had been kept I noticed several animal prints of various types; there appeared to be cloven-hoofed animals along with cats, foxes, and a large wolf. All of these were in blood and there were, at my guess, at least six beasts. These were heading out of the cell and down the very hall where I tread.
Witnesses, including the provost, whose report is included in this dispatch, heard a great and terrible roar and fearfully loud screaming before the door to the cell was wrenched from its hinges and the animals escaped. The wolf reportedly had red eyes and the cats were as large as hunting dogs. Their tracks do confirm this report. Though the provost is ashamed, he does admit that he and his men hid from the animals so as not be murdered by them. No one saw the woman, the accused witch, exit the cell. She is, as far as I am concerned, an escapee. My role here is not to recommend punishment or mercy, it is only to investigate and report. You, in your wisdom, will decide what should be done with the men here.
I moved to the door of the cell which was indeed bent and twisted free of its hinges. No man that I know of could have done such a thing. Only an incredible force of nature could have accomplished the task, and yet, the door stood within a well built jailhouse that remained untouched. How the animals got into the cell, the provost also cannot tell me, for he himself assured the door was locked behind the clergy as they entered, at their direction. Could the man be lying? I think not. He is in a most extreme state of distress and has hardly stopped praying to eat or sleep since my arrival. It is the behavior of a disturbed man, but I think not a guilty one.
Within the cell, Colonel, was only horror. Such horror as I have never seen before and never wish to see again, may God help me. I will do my best to be faithful to the scene as it was presented to me, but forgive me if my words falter at the depravity and vileness of what I witness. Within the cell were the bodies of Father Mathis, Father Laporte, and Archbishop Descoteaux. Their holy frocks and various accoutrements had been rent to shreds, exposing the naked flesh of each man. Rosary beads were scattered around the bloody straw strewn floor and each man had his own cross stuck… between his buttocks, please forgive the indecency, Colonel. I pale to write these details. The men had been ripped open at their bellies and their organs and intestines strewn about the room as though… God forgive me… as though in celebration. Their faces were mutilated as to be no longer recognizable. Each man was missing a part of his body. We have searched the cell and could not find the right index finger of the Archbishop, the nose of Father Laporte, or the genitals of Father Mathis.
The proper authorities from the Church have been contacted and the bodies have been moved to the church here. My men have been scouring the countryside, but no trace of the witch or her demons have been discovered.
More men may be required, as is your direction.
Capitaine Lucien Pelletier
The Notebooks of the Marquis de Sade
2 July 1789
I write this in my carriage as they ferry me from the Bastille to the insane asylum at Charenton. I write on a little wooden desk on my lap – I have decided to call it un surgenoux, a laptop – as the carriage progresses down bumpy lanes, which causes me to succumb to nausea.
This is acceptable; there are worse things than nausea, and certainly many more inauthentic things to suffer than the wave of vomitous disgorgement that overcome me each page or so. I simply rise from my seat, lean out of the window and barf, lustily and with great aplomb. Would that all my bodily activities were so bold and decisive; but alas, age.
“Hey!” they call as they see me spewing down the side of my conveyance. “Hey! M’sieur! Aren’t you the famed pornographer Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, le Marquis de Sade?” The frontispiece likeness of the author which the engraver Casson has made for my books is really quite extraordinary. People simply just will recognize me wherever I go.
“No,” I reply as I mop the puke from my chops with my dainty aristocratic handkerchief scented with lavender. “No,” I say. “Firstly, I am not a pornographer. I am merely the delineator of dreams, a universal lyricist channeling the half-hidden fantasies of all. And second, I am no longer known as the Marquis de Sade. I have renounced my former title and am now to be called plain Louis Sade, humble man of letters, a toiler of the pen and member of the working classes.”
By this time the carriage has left my admirer far behind, and the local curs chase after, lapping up the vomit as it drips from the bodywork. I leave the declaration of my new proletarian identity to them, these running dogs, as is most appropriate, and I return to my laptop, for the labor of a writer never ceases.
Earlier this morning I found a way out of my prison cell and scrambled up onto the roof of the Bastille. It was really quite far down, and I felt a wave of vertigo as I considered for a moment the delicious sensation that it would be to plummet from this place down onto the cobbles below, the exquisite agony of twisted tendons and shattered bones, the sweet lover’s gurgle of blood catching in the throat. But I bethought myself to my revolutionary task and rolled up my manuscript to make a bullhorn.
“Help! Help!” I yelled through the papers. “The guards are killing us prisoners!” It was a simple appeal, direct and frank. It was not true, not yet, but it could well become so in time. “They massacre us in here!” I shouted. “Send help, citoyens! Mass your militias, gather your sections, arm yourselves with pikes, and liberate us your fellow workers from the ongoing slaughter that is taking place in here!”
And much more, for a long time after. The people of Paris began to gather below and to murmur their inchoate revolutionary fervor. I could see it from my high perch – they wished to taste blood, and I was giving them the excuse they needed.
At this point the guards came and dragged me back down to my cell. The warden wished to strike me dead with his sword, but realized that I had too many connections – and in fact, despite my rhetorical flourishes, I am still a nobleman. He decided to declare me non compos mentis and ship me off to the loony bin.
No matter. I planted the seed. Within a week or two at most, this Bastille will be stormed and the people will prevail. I have sowed the wind and this dandified little military man, this prick of a warden, will reap the whirlwind.
Whorls of history whip up at my feet like the waves of a sea-squall. I stand in the calm eye of the storm while it rages around. Round and round it goes. The vortex of revolt, the swirling tides of time.
Excuse me, I must stop writing now. I have to puke and I really can’t puke any longer.
We stop at an inn in Ivry to change horses. Over in the courtyard are a pair of young people who catch my eye, who seem strangely familiar, as if they were characters from some book of mine. A strange bewitching girl, modestly dressed but wild-eyed like a ferocious beast of prey. Long dark locks, a fair bosom in a dirndl patched and stained, a very tigress in the guise of a peasant wench. And beside her stands a young man, very much like her, her brother? He has a gaunt aspect but a demeanor and a way of moving himself that speaks of strength and ruthlessness. He is like myself, me Louis le Marquis, if I had not gone quite so much to seed, if I had been something other than a penman and a cocksman and a soft soft libertine.
And so I sit here and I scribble on my laptop as the ostlers change the horses and my guards take a sip of wine. And I look at this alluring pair, I think of them as Justin and Justine, and my mind wanders. And then they look up, they look at me, they whisper a moment, and they nod agreement of a plan.
And here they come, walking towards my carriage...
3 July 1789
Settled in Charenton last night with an empty belly and a mind full of strange desires. I slept not a wink despite the draught I was given upon being locked in my room. One could suppose it was the new surroundings. The ignominy of an asylum when, in reality, I am the most sane man who has ever lived. Fully settled in my right mind, I merely see farther than the common man, past these days of coddled piety and needless propriety to a time when all people are free to exercise their will as their desires demand. One could also suppose it was the screaming. The guards here do not beat the vociferous into silence as they do at the Bastille. Or perhaps it was this wretched excuse for a mattress. Foul smelling and lumpy. At least my blood wasn’t feasted on all night by those vampiric gluttons, fleas. Although, thinking upon it, I might like to be a flea, sinking my head into the fat rump of a young whore and drinking until I’m ripe and swelling. Such an uncomfortable fatness, hot blood pressing against thin flesh… a thought to keep one up at night in bulging readiness, but it is not what kept me up last night.
No, it was the young couple who accosted me at Ivry. I must detail the encounter, for I feel I will never be rid of its influence. I watched them approach me, the young woman’s eyes never once left mine, the waiting eyes of a predator. Many times I’ve been the hunter, but not since childhood have I allowed myself to be the prey. Yesterday I could do nothing against it. I was suddenly very aware of the shackles which kept me confined in the Charenton carriage. My empty gut churned anew. While she walked toward me, her companion hailed my guard, I saw gold flash in his palm. Were they friends coming to free me? Her eyes did little to reassure.
She approached the carriage window and appeared to sniff the air. “They don’t feed you well in the Bastille, eh?” Under the slight wave of her hand the door lock clicked and she pulled it open, sliding inside. She smelled of earth and smoke. I felt myself wanting to shift away from her, but she reached out and pulled me close, her fine bosom pressed up against me.
“You stink,” she wrinkled her nose. I found myself at a loss for words, a rare occurrence. “I know who you are. What you’ve done. What you pretend to be.” She pressed a long, jagged nail into my cheek, I heard the skin break and felt the hot rush of blood. Pain was second to the fear thudding in my chest.
“Who are you?”
“I am Marie.”
“What do you want with me?”
“Two things.” She licked the blood off my cheek. “I need to find someone. And I want to play. I hear you like to play.”
At a click she looked up. Her brother slid into the carriage on the other side of me. The accursed box started rolling.
“My twin, Joseph.” He reached across me and caressed her cheek, pressing his thumb into her mouth, she bit down, blood welling in the wound. I watched her suckle with fascination, and I must admit that despite the circumstances, my member grew stiff.
“Take off his jacket.” The young man spoke, I heard the self-assured cadence of a soldier in his voice.
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know. Torture is unnecessary.” I never claimed to be a brave man, just a brilliant one. Bravery is overrated, why save another and harm yourself? I simply couldn’t.
“Where do we find Marat?”
I admit I wasn’t immediately sure who she meant. “Ah, the man who wrote the Supplement?”
“Yes, where is he?” The young man spoke this time.
“He’s a nobody. Yet you have me, The Great de Sade, right here in your grasp. Ask me anything, go on.” The audacity of some people. I am a true artist of the flesh and of the letters and they ask about some low-level functionary.
The young woman growled. A sound unlike any other, deep in her throat, a truly animal utterance.
“Well I can’t say that I know, but he was elected to the committee of the Carmes-Déchaussés district, so one imagines he’s there somewhere. But that’s all I know. I don’t suppose you’ll mind if I shove you out of the carriage at a trot, will you? It’s the least you deserve for interrupting my writing.”
I was rather irritated with their lack of reverence toward me. They didn’t respond, the woman looked across me to the man, in unison they each took an arm of my coat and set to stripping me of it. I protested, of course.
“We want to hear you scream,” the young man whispered in my ear. My body reacted, my skin flushed, my heart beat harder in my chest… anger. I am not the subordinate. I lashed out to strike him, the young woman caught my hand with impossible speed. On my life, I don’t know how to explain this, but she had claws coming out of her fingertips. Her brother took my wrist and she slid a clawed finger down the length of my arm, slicing through my vomit stained linen shirt and into my arm. Blood welled immediately and she noisily lapped at it with her tongue before passing my wound over to her brother. He looked doubtful, but he licked crimson spillage nonetheless. Apparently liking it, he latched on to my arm and sucked greedily.
Something happened to me then, a deep ache in my groin. A longing I’d never felt. The young woman noticed the stirring and ripped my pants open with rapacious speed. She took my now raging member in her mouth and sunk her teeth in. I came instantly. She tarried, sucking blood and sperm as I wailed in pain and pleasure. Eventually she let the thing flop out of her mouth, sucked dry and punctured.
“Please, enough. Get out.” My voice hardly sounded like my own.
But the young man pulled out a knife, apparently lacking the same beastly equipment his sister had. At the same time she moved over to him and knelt before him, massaging him through his pants until he was hard. He looked down at her, ravenous. She was gentler with him, I became hard again as I watched her open his pants and begin her fellatio. I touched my own member, slick with blood and bleeding more now that it was hard. An unimaginable feeling of sharp-edged pleasure. I had almost forgotten the knife when I felt it dragged down my face. The young man handed the knife to his sister and took my face in his hands licking, lapping sucking blood from the wound. I felt his mouth on mine, passing my own blood into my maw, which I drank greedily. One’s own life-force is a powerful aphrodisiac.
At this moment the young woman pushed her brother back into the carriage seat and sat atop him. I watched her slide him inside with eagerness. Such a hairy cunt. Perhaps that is keeping me up. I want to bite her back, taste her blood and cream. That and the wounds. She massaged my slick, swollen, bloody dick as she road her brother. All three of us came together.
My newfound obsessions.
Will I ever see them again?
They jumped from the carriage after that. Easily. And I watched them run into the woods, hand in hand. I’m sure I heard a ragged howl, but I was bleeding profusely, so maybe not.
As if they had known what was going to happen, the carriage stopped at the next town. The guards cleaned and dressed my wounds, fixed my clothes as best they could.
And now I am in Charenton, throbbing with pain and desire. I cannot stop thinking of their mouths on mine. What must his cock feel like? I’m left aching for more.
Ah, cette vie misérable!
NEXT PART - Tuesday June 30.
Be there or be ancien régime!
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