In Paris, during the Reign of Terror, the incarcerated Marquis de Sade pens a story about Mademoiselle Renard, a young aristocrat who meets him. Years later, the Marquis is confined to the asylum for the insane at Charenton, overseen by the Abbé du Coulmier.
The Marquis has been publishing his work through laundress Madeleine LeClerc, who smuggles manuscripts through an anonymous horseman to a publisher. The Marquis’ latest work, Justine, is published on the black market to great success. Emperor Napoléon I Bonaparte orders all copies of the book to be torched and the author shot.
Royer-Collard arrives, informing the Abbé that the Marquis’ “therapeutic writings” have been distributed for public consumption. Meanwhile, Simone purchases a copy of Justine, seduces Prioux, and the young lovers run off to England together.
Madeleine’s body is found in the laundry vat by her blind mother and the Abbé. Blaming the Marquis for Madeleine’s death, the Abbé confronts him; the Marquis claims he had been with Madeleine in every way imaginable, only to be told she died a virgin, provoking an emotional outpouring of grief.
In a final twist of fate, the new Abbé arrives at Charenton and is given the grand tour by Royer-Collard. The asylum has been converted into a print shop, with the inmates as its staff, printing the works of the Marquis.
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