"Les Fleurs du Mal" before the judges: literary modernity on trial
Charles Baudelaire by Étienne Carjat in 1862. Étienne Carjat / Public domain
Text by: Tirthankar Chanda Follow
9 mins
On the occasion of the bicentenary of Baudelaire's birth, Gallimard editions have just re-edited the two major works of the poet: “
Les Fleurs du Mal
”
and “
Le Spleen de Paris
”
.
These collections are accompanied by a booklet devoted to the lawsuit instituted in 1857 against the poet "
for insulting public and religious morals and good morals
".
Return on the circumstances of this resounding trial and its consequences on the literary fortune of the father of modern poetry, with the novelist and journalist at the
Literary Figaro
Mohammed Aïssaoui, who prefaced the libretto.
Publicity
Read more
RFI: In August 1857, one hundred and sixty-four years ago, the trial of Baudelaire opened before the 6th correctional chamber of the Seine, accused of having infringed the social and moral codes of French society by publishing
Les Fleurs evil
. Why were you interested in this trial
?
Mohammed Aïssaoui
: Literature trials have always interested me. I had also written a play for France Inter on the trial against Gustave Flaubert on the occasion of the publication of his novel
Madame Bovary
. The prosecution had lost this case despite the aggressiveness and talent of the imperial prosecutor Ernest Pinard. The same Ernest Pinard returned to the charge with Baudelaire. This man has an extraordinary hunting scene, because he wanted to condemn, during the same year, moreover, Gustave Flaubert, Eugène Sue and Charles Baudelaire. When I was contacted by Gallimard editions to participate in the commemoration of the bicentenary of the poet of
Fleurs du mal
, I proposed to come back to the circumstances of this trial.
My proposal was accepted because no project relating to the judicial angle had been scheduled, while this trial was a turning point in Baudelaire's career.
The proofs of "Fleurs du mal", with corrections by the hand of Baudelaire himself, before the first publication of the collection in 1857. Wikipedia
How did Baudelaire become the symbol of the freedom of expression of his time, which is moreover the title of your introductory text
?
Well in spite of himself. This trial was not only against the freedom to write books, but the freedom of expression itself. The stake went beyond the literary field strictly speaking. The imperial prosecutor accused Baudelaire of undermining good morals because his poetry touched erotic fields and was anti-religious. We must restore the context. Today blasphemy does not exist, but back then it did. This religious aspect was fundamental, but the important thing was elsewhere. In the eyes of the prosecutor Ernest Pinard, Baudelaire's crime consisted in praising evil. As a guardian of order, he had to tackle this aestheticization of negativity, which could destabilize the social and political order. It is for the same reasons that the man attacked Flaubert,whom he reproached for giving, through the incarnation of the adulterous woman in
Madame Bovary
, the diminished image of women in general.
Then, he will attack Ernest Sue because he gave, according to him, a degraded image of society by evoking poverty and, in a way, defending the revolution.
They were above all political trials, with in filigree the debates which opposed the Empire and the Republic at the time.
Charles Baudelaire found himself in the middle of it all and did not understand how his book had become a political issue.
What were Baudelaire's political ideas
?
The poet was certainly well introduced into literary and progressive circles, but he himself had no assertive position on the political level.
However, during the trial, he had in front of him a man who nourished a political ambition whose realization required the conviction of Baudelaire, after he had failed to have Flaubert condemned by the same correctional chamber.
Baudelaire will be his revenge.
How to explain that the prosecutor failed to convict Flaubert
?
It is because the novelist knew how to surround himself with powerful advisers and above all with a lawyer who had been a minister. A mature man, this lawyer had managed to find the arguments to thwart the indictment of the imperial prosecutor. Unfortunately for Baudelaire, he was defended by a young 23-year-old lawyer, who made the choice to rely on purely literary arguments to show that his client was not the first French writer to portray the darkness of the world. Maître Chaix d'Este-Ange quoted Rabelais, Molière, Voltaire, La Fontaine, Rousseau… But that will not be enough because the imperial prosecutor, strong of a very precise argument, had no difficulty in demonstrating the offense to morals public, with supporting examples drawn from the offending work. He did not hesitate to quote entire stanzas from
Fleurs du mal
to prove the poet's taste for lascivious painting of human relationships, evoking pleasure, frivolities and morbidity.
The magistrates of the 6th chamber allowed themselves to be convinced and condemned the poet and his publisher to heavy fines and the removal of passages deemed obscene or immoral in the collection.
The collection will be republished, cut off from six poems.
How did Baudelaire experience this condemnation
?
He was furious and got angry with his lawyer. Baudelaire did not expect a conviction, especially since there had been the precedent of the failed trial against Flaubert. He had gone to trial almost flower-to-gun and did not understand the political implications of the attack on his poetry. But he was supported by the whole Republic of Letters. Moreover, the trial, even lost, will give an almost national echo to his work which until then had only been known to literary circles. The defeat contributed to the influence of Baudelaire who then became a model for the rising generations of poets, who were called Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Paul Valéry or even André Breton.
Box including "Les Fleurs du mal" and "Le Spleen de Paris" published on the occasion of the commemorations of the bicentenary of Baudelaire's birth, in April 2021. © Édition Gallimard
For specialists, Baudelaire inaugurated modernity in poetry. What, according to you, consisted of the literary modernity of the poet of
Les Fleurs du mal
?
It's hard to say that the modernity of
Les Fleurs du mal
was in the form, which could be considered rather classic. Baudelaire still writes sonnets and does not disdain the Alexandrines. For me, Baudelaire's modernity comes from his freedom of tone, his deeply sentimental expression which is part of a sort of permanent oxymoron of dark beauty, announced from the title: "Les Fleurs du mal". The musicality of his verses, their simplicity, their sincerity went against the tide of classical poetry from which the time was still nourished. The poet goes even further with
Le Spleen de Paris
, which will be released in its final version after his death. In addition to its innovative form of prose poetry, the fifty or so texts that compose it show the true originality of Baudelaire's poetic project, which made discomfort, melancholy and black ideas a literary work. Unlike Victor Hugo, whom he admired and his other predecessors, he was not in the social fight, because the only fight that is valid for him is the inner fight that each being leads to rise above the chaos of the soul. Baudelaire's modernity undoubtedly also resides in this painter's outlook on the world and things. Do not forget that he was also an art critic and possessed by a passion for the image. We can read his poetry like a descriptive painting,where each word is a brushstroke to show inner feelings and movements.
As a journalist and literary critic, you have taken a keen interest in postcolonial literatures. What influence did Baudelaire exert on the Senghor, the Césaires, the Tchicaya U Tam'si
?
A primordial influence, especially on writers from overseas territories.
In Reunion, for example, Baudelaire is considered a Reunionese author.
Elsewhere in Africa, writers whose creative genius has long been stifled by various pressures under colonial regimes, drew inspiration from his poetry to express their own ill-being, which was not only political.
Charles Baudelaire box set (
Les Fleurs du Mal
,
Le Spleen de Paris
and the booklet “The Flowers of Evil on trial” introduced by Mohammed Aïssaoui).
Illustration and calligraphy by Ernest Pignon Ernest.
Gallimard, 2021, 15 euros.
Newsletter
Receive all international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
Books
On the same subject
International report
Mauritius: the 150th anniversary of Baudelaire's death
Dance of words
Baudelaire, the writer's eye
Great report
In the footsteps of Baudelaire in Mauritius