1777  

In late 1777, Sade was tricked into visiting his supposedly sick mother (who had recently died) in Paris. There he was finally arrested and imprisoned in the prison of Vincennes. He successfully appealed his death sentence in 1778, but remained imprisoned under the lettre de cachet. He escaped but was recaptured soon after. In prison, he resumed writing. At Vincennes he met the fellow prisoner Comte de Mirabeau who also wrote erotic works, but the two disliked each other immensely.

In a journal entry from 1777, James Cook says the term taboo “has a very comprehensive meaning; but, in general, signifies that a thing is forbidden.... When any thing is forbidden to be eat, or made use of, they say, that it is taboo.”