25 April 1785

The Haven

Dearest God-father,

The post rider from Bordeaux has brought me tidings from both you and Lucien, for which I am most delighted and grateful. I confess I have put Luciens packet aside so I may conspire with you to make certain arrangements for the apartments you and he will share in Rocca Sorrentina when Lucien is able to travel to that lovely island as his responsibilities to the Marquis permit and you are able to slip onto the island unobserved by those you of necessity elude.

If all goes well, a ship of our agent in Marseilles will dock in Sorrentina within a fortnight. I trust you will both approve and enjoy the paintings I have chosen from the collection here, as well as household objects I know you to hold dear by virtue of the memories they hold for you.

The fine craftsmen and shopkeepers of Sorrentina will be a source for good seating and tables and a small number of fine musical instruments are being delivered from the mainland for your pleasure and for those small entertainments I hope you and Lucien will host when you are in residence.

Know that I will continue to send you things to fill up your pied a Terre with things I know you to hold dear. As for the books you have asked for, I will bring those myself, since they are too precious to send unaccompanied.

Finally, do not chide me, godfather, for extravagance in the selection of comestibles that will soon arrive to fill your larders. I cannot be with you to preside over your table, so I send youand our dear Lucienan abundance of pleasures of the table to savor to remind you both of your Lorsagne.

As for news from the estate, I write you as I sit on the small terrace next to the vineyard planted with the new vines you helped select after the disastrous harvest of two years ago. The roots have found good footing and are putting out the their first real vines which the workers are tying up under the watchful eye of the vigneron who marches up and down the rows like a bandy rooster taking the measure of his hens.

I confess that Fanny and I share some of the vignerons zeal: to see the Havens wines fetch the prices of our neighbors would give us the greatest of satisfactions! I tease her that the business of making wine cannot be nearly so difficult as that of transforming words into books, but she assures me both activities are more alchemy than rote and watching her labor on her manuscripts I am inclined to believe her. My foolish letters to you are labors of love; for Fanny Burney, her words are the expression of her ambition and her need to provide for herself. She is quite remarkable and these months of enjoying her company in this quiet place have given me great joy and comfort in yours and Luciens absence.

Until we next meet, Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut.

Lorsagne

November of 1785

Beloved Friend,

Your letters are ever wonderful as they are both agreeable in their timing and a tonic for my mind which I confess is somewhat unsettled as the days grow short and the skies over The Haven gray as the harvest comes to a close and the workers scurry about preparing for the coming winter. The harvest was good and my vingeron tells me he has great hope for the vintage. We will not know for many years, but I recall the words of the card reader in Sorrentina and hold the hope that one day the wines of the Haven will be equal to those of Haut-Brion in Pessac. It will be a disappointment if we fail, of course, but I cannot permit the possibility of disappointment to deflect me from my ambition to bring honor to the name of de Sade.

Papa, I regret, is no good advocate for the rehabilitation of his name. His transition from his imprisonment in Vincennes to the Bastille has not been without misadventure and misstep. Poor papa! He fails totally to assume the demeanor and tone of a prisoner instead of a noble forced to lodge beneath his station due to the political machinations of a mother-in-law that would best Lucifers demons-at-arms in any contest. His wife Rene kindly shares with me the letters Papa writes to her nearly daily and I continually marvel at the womans patience as he rails and rants and does not service to his cause by the taunts he throws in the faces of his jailors.

Merde! Does it never occur to Papa that favoring these men who had nothing to do with his imprisonment and are in their own way trying to adjust the reality of his accommodation to his tastes daily volleys of scorn and venom does his cause no good? He berates them for the lack of his favorite chocolates and authors books, he sulks that his linen is not laundered to his standard and that his chamber pot is not emptied to his schedule. The result? They have denied him his greatest wish: the privilege of a daily promenade in the fresh air, away from his small suite of rooms.

Men! The art of obedience, acquiescence and subservience in the pursuit of ones ultimate goals is quite beyond their comprehension. They do not have our feminine advantages, and so must raise their voices and their boot to rule. Stripped of a public voice as Papa now finds himself and a man is less even than those most powerless in our society: old women with neither youth nor wealth to insulate themselves and buy their comfort until they rest in the ground.

But I grow melancholy and that is not my intent dear Fanny. You will enjoy the greatest of pleasures at Windsor and I envy you the company of that pet Mary Delany. Next to your letters, I most treasure hers; she is all I can hope to achieve in a lifetime and I pray you give her my love and affection at your earliest opportunity.

For me, I await to hear when the babe Maria is to be christened. The Parisian jeweler Nitot has fashioned the most beautiful of hair combs as my gift to my god-child and I am anxious to see the child once again.

As ever,

Lorsagne