title: The Mystified Magistrate: And Other Tales
author: Marquis De Sade
description: Donatien-Alphonse-Fran ois de Sade (1740-1814), sometimes referred to as the "Divine Marquis," spent 27 years (half his adult life) in jail. When his increasingly unconventional behavior in public embarrassed his family, his mother-in-law schemed to keep Sade behind bars by petitioning the king and bribing justices. Ironically, it was she who made Sade a writer, for during those long periods of confinement and isolation his fertile imagination ran rampant, and he turned to writing. By the same author who penned the pornographic novel, Justine, these stories are rather tame in comparison, but all the familiar themes are there: homosexuality, lesbianism, torture, and disdain for the courts. The collection features the novella "The Mystified Magistrate," which mocks one of the judges who sentenced Sade to prison, as well as ten shorter works. It will be enjoyed by readers who appreciate the author's mordant wit, possess a sense of humor, and take a bemused or scholarly interest in Sade's bizarre personality. Recommended for all public and academic libraries.DBob Ivey, Univ. of Memphis <br />Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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  # The Diary of a Madman
  
  
  ### Guy de Maupassant
  
  
  This page copyright © 2002 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
    
  He was dead—the head of a high tribunal, the upright magistrate,
  
  
  whose irreproachable life was a proverb in all the courts of France.
  
  
  Advocates, young counselors, judges had saluted, bowing low in token
  
  
  of profound respect, remembering that grand face, pale and thin,
  
  
  illumined by two bright, deep-set eyes.
  
  
  He had passed his life in pursuing crime and in protecting the
  
  
  weak. Swindlers and murderers had no more redoubtable enemy, for he
  
  
  seemed to read in the recesses of their souls their most secret
  
  
  thoughts.
  
  
  He was dead, now, at the age of eighty-two, honored by the homage
  
  
  and followed by the regrets of a whole people. Soldiers in red
  
  
  breeches had escorted him to the tomb, and men in white cravats had
  
  
  shed on his grave tears that seemed to be real.
  
  
  But listen to the strange paper found by the dismayed notary i