Watch FilmoFlix. In 1956, the rich French publisher of the works of the Marquis de Sade, Jean-Jacques Pauvert, was summoned to court for violating good morals and publishing pornography. Sade was born in 1755 and already in 1778 he was sentenced to a years-long prison, which was renewed by himself because of the writing of "scandalous" texts. This saved his life after the French revolution, but he soon came into conflict with Robespierre.