The Marquis owes his reputation as a philosophe mainly to the fact that his work was banned for decades and rediscovered just as sexology was taking off.
For years, the manuscript of 120 Days of Sodom and Gomorrah was thought to have been lost during the Storming of the Bastille in July 1789.
It wasn't until over a century later that one of the pioneers of sex studies, Dr. Iwan Bloch, managed to track it down and publish the first limited edition of the book—in German—in 1904.
And now a transplanted Irishman is hoping to do his own bit for the Marquis' myth here in his terre native.
Finn wants to open a shop that would highlight Sade's work and philosophy.
'But I want to do it non-profit-making. I want to do it for de Sade. I know sex sells and all that, but I don't want to get into this fetish-sadomasochism stuff because that shows a bad side to him. I think there's a whole other side to de Sade.'
* * *
Of course, Yves Rousset-Rouard balks at this description, but as the producer of Emmanuelle (plus two sequels) and the founder of the world's first Corkscrew Museum, you can't help but suspect he's obsessed with screwing.
Inevitably, the collection of tire-bouchons on his vineyard five miles from Lacoste includes some naughty bits, such as a range of nineteenth-century 'erotic' corkscrews endowed with spread-eagle handles and male and female genitalia.
Nevertheless, Rousset-Rouard is reluctant to talk about his more famous world first: the softcore crossover that made erotica mainstream.
'I produced 35 movies in my life, and just three Emmanuelles,' he protests.
In case you're counting, that's three more than Spielberg, the Weinstein brothers, or Yves' friend, Ridley Scott.
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