search assistant, Guillemette Bolens, who did impeccable work researching
bibliographical citations and translations, and Alison Anderson, Ridley
Hammer and Jerome Singerman, at the University of Pennsylvania Press,
whose professional advice and assistance have been invaluable.

I am indebted to the American Council of Learned Societies for a fel-
lowship in 1984-85 and to the Mellon Foundation for a grant during the
summer of 1985, both of which enabled me to write the first part of this
book. The publication in English was made possible through the financial
support of the French Ministry of Culture, and of the School of Arts and
Sciences and the Research Foundation at the University of Pennsylvania.
To all my sincere gratitude.

Chapter 3 incorporates material previously published in "The Social
Body: Disorder and Ritual" in Sade The Story of Juliette, in Eroticism and the
Body Politic, ed. Lynn Hunt ( Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1991), reprinted by permission of the publisher. Chapters 5 and 7 incor-
porate material previously published in "A Turning Point in the Sadean
Novel: The Terror," Pli. Warwick Journal of Philosophy ( 1994, issue on "The
Divine Sade," ed. Deepak Narang Sawhney), reprinted by permission of
the journal.

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