The most famous erotic novel in the French language, apart from those of the Marquis, is "Gamiani", attributed to Alfred de Musset. This book, hardly heard of in modern England, went through forty one editions before 1930. In one preface it is claimed that the author wrote it to prove that an erotic novel could be written without resort to "coarse" words.

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, born in 1836, was not the first masochist, despite the title of the book by J. Cleugh ("The First Masochist"). Centuries before the arrival of Sacher-Masoch men and women would surely have discovered that in certain cases apparent suffering had the power to generate sexual delight. Count Leopold did however give his name to the phenomenon, and it is on this circumstance that his fame largely rests. This is, perhaps, a pity. He was after all a successful novelist - with over ninety titles to his credit. He was also said to be fond of children and cats.

Our woman sadist, unlike de Sade, was a practising person, i.e. she wrote no books but killed and tortured to her heart's content. In 1611, aged fifty, the Hungarian noblewoman Erzsebet Bathory was walled up alive in her castle in the Minor Carpathians for having killed some six hundred young girls in various ways. The judge at her trial appears to have been particularly concerned that she murdered noblewomen as well as mere servant-girls. Bathory used a number of ingenious devices. For instance, she put a terrified naked girl in a narrow iron cage

By the eleventh century the Franciscans were extolling self-flagellation as a penance. And the Italian Benedictine St. Pietro Damian organised group flagellation for laymen. Two hundred years later a procession of fanatical flagellants - closely linked to the Flagellant sect - set out under the auspices of St. Anthony of Padua. This austere saint, theologian and preacher-keen to combat manifest sexuality - was in fact adding to the sexual ferment. In 1260 unofficial processions of voluntary scourgers, each member heartily whipping the man in front of him,

In 1671 a small publication appeared entitled "Whipping Tom Brought to light, and exposed to capital Views: In an account of several late Adventures of the pretended Whipping Spirit". It seems that the streets of London had been haunted by a phantom spanker, who had been nicknamed "Whipping Tom." He would lurk in dark corners and, grabbing a passing wench, he would toss up her petticoats and spank her vigorously until she cried for help. Then he would run off like a thief into the night. Until finally captured he was assumed to have supernatural powers.

There were many high-class brothels in the nineteenth century. One of the most famous of these was run by a Mrs. Theresa Berkley (or Berkeley) of 28 Charlotte Street. She was a "governess", i.e. she specialised in chastisement, whipping, flagellation, and the like. She was even credited with the invention of the Berkley horse, an ingenious flogging machine that earned her a fortune. One writer (B. J. Hurwood in "The Golden Age of Erotica") said of her - "She possessed the first requisite of a courtezan, viz., lewdness; for without a woman is

Just as Sacher-Masoch gave his name to masochism so the Marquis de Sade gave his name to sadism. There is controversy as to the extent to which de Sade was a practising sadist. Did he in reality act out his fantasies or were his novels the main vehicles for his sexual imaginings?

There have been many sadistic inventions: the mediaeval torture chambers were full of them. We need not give a list here. Suffice it to mention that the inquisitors, with full theological sanction, thought it proper to introduce a clamp specially devised for the torture of pregnant women. In more recent times, electrical generators have been used on all parts of the bodies of men and women. And Chapman Pincher mentions (in "Sex in Our Time") a pair of binoculars in the Black Museum of Scotland Yard - "These were sent anonymously through the post

Charles Monnet (1732-1808), The Flagellation of the Penitents. Engraved by d'Ambrun