Erotic literature Lifted Curtain or Laura's Education", about a young girl's sexual initiation by her father, written by the French revolutionary politician Comte de Mirabeau; also Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, first published in 1782. In the late 18th century, such works as "Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue" and "120 Days of Sodom" by the Marquis de Sade were exemplars of the theme of sado-masochism and influenced later erotic accounts of Sadism and masochism in fiction. De Sade (as did the later writer Sacher-Masoch) lent his name to the sexual acts which he describes in his
Paris in the 18th century family were imprisoned within the tower of the Temple. The Luxembourg Palace and the former convents of Les Carmes (70 rue Vaugirard) and Port-Royal (121-125 boulevard Port-Royal) were turned into prisons. The Conciergerie within the Palace of Justice was used to hold accused criminals during their trial; Marie-Antoinette was held there until her sentence and execution. In the first half of the 18th century, under the Old Regime, criminals could be executed either by hanging, decapitation, burning alive, boiling alive, being broken on a wheel, or by drawing and quartering. The domestic servant Robert-François Damiens, who tried to kill King