THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM

In the final years of Louis XIV's reign, shortly before the beginning of the Regency, when the French people were impoverished by the many wars waged by the Sun King, a few took advantage of the situation to enrich themselves at the expense of general misery. Four of these wealthy and extremely libertine men, an aristocrat, a clergyman, a banker and a judge (representatives of the four powers of France), decided to give free rein to their passions for 120 days (four months) at the Château de Silling, owned by Durcet (one of the libertines) in Switzerland. There, 600 types of pleasure will be narrated, staged for 120 days, at 150 per month and 5 per day.

They hire 4 "historian" pimps to relate ways of pleasure, 150 each, every month. They kidnap 8 girls and 8 boys who are selected to form their female and male harems. These 16 are joined by 8 young "jokers" or "fuckers" and up to 42 people who will be their servants and victims. The total number of people locked up in the castle is 46: the 4 protagonists, their 4 daughters-wives, the 16 teenagers, the 8 fuckers, the 4 historians and 10 servants: 4 old women and 6 cooks.

The first part deals with the "150 simple or first-class passions" (without penetration). It takes place over the 30 days of November, during each of which continuous orgies are celebrated and the historian who is assigned that month, Madame Duclos, is the only narrator of the four planned. Acts of sexual arousal related to the different bodily fluids and objects and to necrophilia are described. The first corporal punishments also appear.

The remaining three parts (in December, January and February), which refer to the "complex, criminal and mortal" passions, are only written in outline, leaving the work unfinished.