In July 1857, the collection "Les Fleurs du mal" was published.
Charles Baudelaire's poems cause a scandal ... In this new episode of the Europe 1 Studio podcast "At the Heart of History", Jean des Cars tells the story of the tormented poet.
The publication of “Fleurs du Mal” caused a stir. All the right-thinking press is bent on this book which will even be judged for immorality. In this new episode of the Europe 1 Studio podcast “At the Heart of History”, Jean des Cars concludes his story on the life of the poet Charles Baudelaire.
On June 1, 1855, the "Revue des Deux Mondes" published eighteen poems by Rimbaud and only part of what would be "Les Fleurs du Mal". The first poem "To the reader" will be kept at the head of the final version. It is a pessimistic poem about the fact that Man cannot resist Evil. He says, for example, "our sins are stubborn, our repentances are cowardly" or "it is the Devil who holds the threads that move us". He ends by pointing to the worst of vices: it is boredom. For him, it is "the ugliest, the nastiest, the most filthy".
During the following months, two more poems appeared in a collective work entitled "Fontainebleau". Baudelaire also writes an essay "The Essence of Laughter" while continuing to publish his translation of "Histoires Extraordinaires" by Edgar Poe. But during this period, he spent most of his time modifying and classifying the poems that would constitute "Les Fleurs du Mal".
Indeed, he found a publisher, Auguste Poulet-Malassis.
He is a chartist, eminent bibliophile who is also a printer in Alençon.
He generously decides to take charge of the edition.
The poet and his editor will exchange a long and meticulous correspondence to decide on the presentation and the establishment of the text and also to regulate a thousand typographical details.
"Les Fleurs du Mal" finally appeared on July 11, 1857.
The "Flowers of Evil" trial
The publication caused a real scandal.
It is "Le Figaro", then government newspaper, which opens fire by starting a violent campaign signed by a certain Gustave Bourdin.
All the right-thinking press is bent on this book "which stinks of carrion and unspeakable vices".
Despite very laudatory articles by Edouard Thierry in "Le Moniteur", Barbey d'Aurevilly and Charles Asselineau, a police report is requested.
This report judges, July 16, 1857, that the book of Baudelaire is "deeply immoral" and must be brought to justice.
The trial took place on August 20, 1857. Baudelaire's lawyer made a very noble plea, but the Imperial Prosecutor, Ernest Pinard, delivered an implacable indictment.
Baudelaire and his publisher were sentenced to a fine of 300 and 200 francs for "insulting public morals and good morals".
They must also delete six poems deemed too licentious such as "Lesbos", "Damned women" or "The metamorphoses of the vampire".
This judgment will not be overturned by the Court of Cassation until… on May 31, 1949, that is to say 92 years after the first court decision!
It should still be noted that all editions of "Fleurs du mal", from 1911, had reinstated the censored poems.
However, Baudelaire, like his friend Flaubert, had sought the protection of the Imperial Court and especially of the Empress Eugenie.
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In 1856, Gustave Flaubert had published "Madame Bovary". A few scenes from the novel scandalize the right-thinking bourgeoisie. They initiate proceedings against the author. Flaubert, who is received at the Séries de Compiègne, calls Eugenie for help. This trial against him took place in February 1857. The prosecutor, Auguste Pinard, undoubtedly influenced by the Empress, decided in favor of acquittal. The reason for his indulgence had been whispered to him by Prosper Mérimée who told Eugenie that a novelist could not be reproached for being inspired by the reality of a news item. About "Madame Bovary", Baudelaire writes:
"Several critics had said:" This work, truly beautiful by the thoroughness and liveliness of the descriptions, does not contain a single character who represents morality, who speaks to the conscience of the author.
Where is he, the character responsible for explaining the fable and directing the reader's intelligence? "... The logic of the work is sufficient for all the postulations of morality, and it is up to the reader to draw the conclusions. "
The condemnation of the "Fleurs du Mal" did not help the finances of Baudelaire, still pursued by a pack of creditors.
In addition, he suffers from a hereditary disease which will lead him to a slow paralysis, aggravated by syphilis, probably contracted at the age of 20 years.
The spleen of the "Flowers of Evil"
In "The Flowers of Evil", he expressed his pains as a lonely man, a betrayed lover, his sadness, the spleen of constantly disappointed hopes and the weaknesses of his character.
He will write to his intractable tutor Ancelle: "In this atrocious book, I have put all my heart, all my tenderness, all my religion, all my hatred."
In 1861, he published the second edition of "Fleurs du Mal", expunged of the six condemned poems.
He begins to pour out his resentment in a story that he wants terrible and that he calls "My heart laid bare".
He will never complete it.
Only a few scattered notes remain, such as the testament of the suffering and deeply mystical poet.
Paradoxically, and still in 1861, he presented himself to the French Academy in the chair of Lacordaire.
Vigny and Flaubert encourage him to do so, Sainte-Beuve considers it inappropriate.
Baudelaire withdrew his candidacy at the last minute, just before the ballot, by writing to his mother: "I don't need the approval of these old animals".
But the year 1861 is also the year of a musical revelation.
Baudelaire attends the eventful premiere of Richard Wagner's "Tannhaüser", so eventful that a spectator, furious, broke her fan on her neighbor's head!
From the outset, the poet is convinced of the Wagnerian genius.
He says that with his eyes closed, from the first bars, he felt "taken from Earth" in a sort of ecstasy, hovering far above and far away from the natural world.
Tannhaüser embodies all his own contradictions: "the struggle of the flesh with the spirit, of Hell with Heaven, of Satan with God".
Once again, Baudelaire is transported by modernity.
As Wagner himself says, "The Music of the Future" wins.
In 1863, Baudelaire gave his last two great pieces of art criticism "The work and the life of Eugène Delacroix" who died in August, and "the painter of modern life" that is Constantin Guys , which owes it all its glory.
Baudelaire wins Belgium
Suddenly, in April 1864, tired of the lack of interest in Paris for his works, Baudelaire decided to join his friend the publisher Poulet-Malassis in Belgium.
He had settled there to flee the creditors.
The poet hoped to find more freedom, more success and perhaps even a publisher for his existing or future works.
Alas, as soon as he arrived, he was disappointed.
He gives lectures on Delacroix, Gautier, the "Artificial Paradise" at the Cercle des Arts.
They have no success.
He undertakes a trip to Antwerp, Mechelen, Bruges, Liège and Ghent, not at all to admire their beauties but to write murderous notes because he meditates a great pamphlet against Belgium where he sees only a caricature of France and which he will title "Poor Belgium".
Sometimes, he returns to Paris and especially Honfleur where his mother has settled since the death of her second husband in 1857. He still loves her passionately.
It is both his joy and his daily remorse.
He wrote her heartbreaking letters.
He reminds her how much he loved her in her younger years, how much her tenderness was necessary for him.
He even forgives her for having deprived him of his inheritance, understanding that she had a different vision of money than he.
He reproaches him, however, for never having imagined that he could become a remarkable man for the career he had chosen.
He needs her and little by little, she gets closer to him.
The end of Baudelaire
On February 4, 1866, Baudelaire, accompanied by his new friend Félicien Rops and Poulet-Malassis fell while visiting the Saint-Loup church in Namur.
It is the first serious attack of what will become a general paralysis.
A few days later, he suffered a stroke.
He loses his speech.
He was transferred to a religious clinic in Brussels.
At the same time, appear in “Le Parnasse Contemporain”, a review edited by Catulle Mendès, the new “Fleurs du Mal”.
Baudelaire had still been able to correct the proofs.
On July 1, 1867, the poet, whose intelligence is intact, is brought back to Paris by his friend the painter Alfred Stevens.
He was admitted to the nursing home of Doctor Duval, rue du Dôme.
He will live there a year-long agony, undoubtedly softened by the permanent presence of his mother, finally convinced of her son's genius.
Most of his friends will take turns with him: Nadar, Théodore de Banville, Leconte de Lisle, Asselineau, Madame Paul Meurice brings him consolation with the music of Wagner.
He will be delivered from what he called "the unbearable life" on August 31, 1867. He had received the last sacraments in full lucidity.
His funeral is celebrated in Saint-Honoré d'Eylau.
He is buried in the Montparnasse cemetery alongside his father-in-law, General Aupick, whom he had long forgiven.
A few years earlier, he had written to his mother: "However, I loved my father-in-law and besides today I have enough wisdom to do him justice. But anyway, he was stubbornly clumsy. I want to slip. quickly, because I already see tears in your eyes. "
On his grave, Théodore de Banville will deliver a magnificent speech because this genius had faithful friends.
They admired him as much for his powerful poetic creation as for his taste for all the Arts: Literature, Painting, Music ...
Baudelaire knew how to recognize and honor his masters.
This is what he did in the magnificent poem included in "Les Fleurs du Mal" and entitled "Les Phares".
It is a tribute to all the painters who forged a path, who were innovative in their time and that none of their successors could afford to ignore.
Each stanza is dedicated to an artist, necessarily in chronological order: Rubens, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Michelangelo (who even has the right to two stanzas!), Watteau, Goya and Delacroix.
All of them suffered, experienced "ecstasies, cries and tears".
To contemplate their works is "a divine opium".
The last stanza could apply to itself:
"For it is truly, Lord, the best testimony
That we can give of our dignity
That this long howl that rolls from age to age,
And come to die on the edge of your eternity "
Bibliographic resources:
Baudelaire, "Les Géants" collection (Paris-Match, 1970)
Authors' dictionary (Collection Bouquins, Robert Laffont, 1985)
Les Fleurs du Mal, illustrated by Rodin (Edito Service, Geneva, 1983)
"At the heart of History" is a Europe 1 Studio podcast
Author and presentation: Jean des Cars
Production: Timothée Magot
Director: Matthieu Blaise
Distribution and editing: Clémence Olivier and Salomé Journo
Graphic design: Karelle Villais