I expressly forbid my body to be opened under and consideration soever. I ask with the greatest emphasis that my body shall be kept for forty-eight hours in the room I shall die in, placed in a wooden coffin which shall only be nailed down on the expiration of the time mentioned; during this interval an express messenger shall be sent to sieur Lenormand, wood merchant, at Versailles to pray him come himself accompanied with a wagon to fetch my body to be transported under his escort to the wood on my property at Malmaison in the commune of Mance near Epernon, where I wish it to be placed , without any sort of ceremony, in the first thicket on the right in the said wood, entering from the direction of the old chateau by the large road which divides the wood. My grave shall be dug in the thicket by the Malmaison farmer under inspection of M. Lenormand, who will leave my body after after it has been placed in the grave; if he wishes he can be accompanied in this ceremony by those of my relations and friends, who, without mourning of any sort, will have the kindness to show me this last mark of attachment. Once the grave has been filled it shall be sown over with acorns so that subsequently the said grave being replanted and the thicket being tangled as was before, the traces of my tomb may disappear from the face of the earth, as I flatter myself that my memory will be wiped away from the minds of men, save those few whose affection for me has continued to the last, and of whom I take a pleasant memory to the grave.
  Made at Charenton-Saint-Maurice, while of sound mind and body, January 30th, 1806 
--D.A.F Sade