Moments in C.P. History - Number 4: Rose Keller

Fourth part of the series by Paul Melrose, from Februs 35

A woman stood outside the Church of the Little Fathers in the Place des Victoires in Paris begging for alms. Her name was Rose Keller and she had done this every day since losing her job as a cotton spinner. She had been a respectable married woman from Strasbourg but the premature death of her husband and the loss of her job had reduced the thirty-six-year-old Rose to a life of begging of which she was ashamed. In the Paris of 1768, however, there were few choices for working women thrown into penury and Rose had taken the one she believed to be the least dishonourable… the other choice being one such a modest woman would not contemplate. Who knows how long Rose would have continued this sad ritual until disease and ultimately death from cold and exposure would claim her… but it was not to be, for one fateful day, events occurred which would have significant consequences for both Rose and for another.

The day was Easter Sunday, April 3rd 1768 and the man who approached the wretched woman begging for alms was named Donatien Alphonse Francois, the Marquis de Sade. He watched for a few moments as passers by thrust their small change into her grateful hand and then offered her two livres, a substantial sum, if she would follow him to his country cottage. Rose Keller was no fool and immediately sensed what she might have to do for such a considerable sum. Indignantly she protested that though she may have been reduced to begging she was ‘not that sort of woman’ and initially refused Sade’s invitation.

Sade glibly informed Rose that, temporary resident in Paris as he was, he needed a housekeeper and this was a way to help her out of her difficulties. She was persuaded that the job carried a guarantee of plentiful food and shelter and this seductive promise convinced her to accept, a welcome relief from the desperate circumstances in which she had been living. De Sade’s coach took them both to his cottage at Arcueil, just outside Paris, where the smooth convincing nobleman showed his guest to her new bedchamber and promised her some food and drink. Rose was overwhelmed by her new surroundings, hardly able to believe her good fortune, when Sade returned and invited her down to the breakfast room.

Once inside, Sade locked the door and ordered Rose to take off all her clothes. Genuinely shocked, Rose angrily refused declaring that she had been tricked and had explained that she was not a prostitute. Sade told her brusquely that unless she did as he ordered he would kill her and bury her in the garden. Terrified, Rose began to undress but, being a modest woman, refused to remove her chemise. The enraged Sade tore off the chemise then pushed the terrified naked woman face down onto his bed and began to whip her back and buttocks with, alternately, a bundle of canes and a cat o’ nine tails.

During the whipping, as Rose was later to testify, Sade poured what felt like molten wax into her weals. The louder Rose screamed the harder Sade whipped until eventually she heard the Marquis shudder and groan, a sign that he had reached orgasm, and only then did her whipping cease.

Sade then locked Rose Keller in the bedroom after telling her he would take her back to Paris that evening but the shocked and terrified woman still feared that she might be murdered.

Left alone, Rose tore the sheet into strips and knotted the strands, escaping through the bedroom window. The woman then ran down the village street despite being spotted by Sade’s valet who ran after her and offered a purseful of money for her silence. Hysterical and afraid, Rose brushed him aside and kept running until she reached the village where three women took her in hand, ultimately taking her to the home of the Chief Bailiff and to a police officer, where she repeated her story. The Bailiff’s wife, a Mme Lambert, heard the story and examined Rose Keller’s wounds, an experience which upset her so much she burst into tears and retired to her room.

The next day, Easter Monday, the charge was heard by a judge and it became apparent that Rose Keller was a very reliable witness. Sade’s family was now certain that the Marquis was in serious trouble. A deputation was dispatched to see Rose, who was still recovering at the home of the town bailiff, and they were shocked to find that this ‘simple’ beggar woman had a sound financial head on her shoulders despite the ordeal. She demanded 3000 livres, the equivalent of about £9000, in order to drop any charges. The Sade family were stunned by the demand but eventually Rose Keller settled on 2600 livres, a truly sizeable sum.

Rose Keller’s life changed for the better overnight as a result. A nightmare encounter which she feared might result in her death had in fact provided her with riches beyond her dreams, a chance of a new life and the opportunity to meet and marry a new husband, thus fate can deal a strange hand. For the Marquis, who appeared to have got away with it, this incident allied to others provided his enemies, primarily his mother-in-law, with the opportunity to convince the King that Sade should be put away for good. Ever the hedonistic libertine, Sade managed to commit more outrages on the moral senses of his neighbours, including a weekend long orgy involving sexual and flagellant activity with a number of very young girls before his eventual capture. Finally, after protracted attempts to fend off the inevitable, Sade was arrested and sent away to prison where he would spend most of his life until released by the forces of the Revolution, an old and sick man. During his long incarceration, Sade wrote some of the most controversial works of literature, the content of which is now being re-evaluated by literary critics as something deeper than merely hideous and cruel pornography, a label with which it was once dismissed.