Charles BAUDELAIRE / Autographed letter signed / Spleen / Flowers of Evil / Poetry

  
" to his mother, Madame Aupick [Brussels], "Monday, November 13, 1865", 4 p. In-8° with tightly written black ink on a bifolium. Ancient and discreet tab mark on the left margin of the fourth page. Unsuccessful editorial ambitions and obscure confidences to his mother, just a few months before his terrible setback. From the collections of Godoy and Martin.

"My dear little mother, I can only repeat to you the information I have already given you. From July 15 to August 12, Mr. Julien Lemer had several discussions with the Garnier brothers for my five volumes. [Les Fleurs du mal, Small prose poems, Artificial Paradises and two volumes of criticism].

The sixth (Belgium) is excluded from the market. Hippolyte Garnier (who is the director of the bookstore) left for his annual trips.

He returned to Paris on October 25. I only know, and this is an important sign, that Mr. Garnier consulted Sainte-Beuve, but that his brother Auguste is against me. And if the deal doesn't go through? Why not tell me that none of my books will ever sell again? I am no longer good for anything. I am bored to death.

I believe this deal will happen, but my great fear is having to then. Here are the 4,000 francs that the Garnier brothers will have to pay me; these 4,000 francs that I wanted to use to pay off French debts. Certainly, the book on Belgium [his pamphlet La Belgique déshabillée, whose first excerpts were published posthumously in 1887] is very advanced.

It lacks little; but the total lack of money prevents me from finishing it. My forced leisure to touch up my prose poems as much as possible, My contemporaries; it would still be time saved; because it will have to be done later. But I am no longer interested in anything. Two weeks ago, a newspaper director from Paris wrote to me that if I wanted to send him a selection of these fragments, provided they were not likely to upset his subscribers, he would immediately send me 3 or 400 francs. Not only have I done nothing, but I have not even replied to him.

There is no other mention of this "director" in the poet's correspondence, is it fiction? In this sleepy state, which resembles spleen a lot, I must nevertheless make it a duty to write to you often. Because I see that the winter worries begin cruelly for you. The idea of distracting you may give me the courage I do not have for my interests.

Every day I see in the windows of the bookshops in Brussels all the smut and daily trivialities printed in Paris, and I rage when I think of my. Six volumes, the result of several years of work, and which, reprinted only once a year, would give me a nice income. I can say that I have never been spoiled by fate! He affirms that he considers the deal excellent for the Garnier brothers.

I do not doubt it. I suspect he is going very slowly so as not to appear rushed, and that, as he refuses to accept anything from me, he wants to be paid by them - or rather, I do not understand anything. Take care of yourself as best you can. That is all I ask of you and all I ask of heaven. Very much in debt in France, it is partly to live away from his creditors that Baudelaire eventually left Paris on April 24, 1864, for Belgium.

However, this exile will be the beginning of a new series of editorial setbacks for him. He faces a new failure with Lacroix for the sale of the rights to his Variétés in three volumes. He also seeks help from his colleagues, such as Victor Hugo or Sainte-Beuve. The latter, mentioned at the beginning of the letter, only provides him with timid support, despite the importance Baudelaire placed on his judgment. The two men have known each other for a long time. Lemer had already published in 1850 "Lesbos" (one of the six pieces condemned in Les Fleurs du Mal in 1857) in the collection Les Poètes de l'amour, an anthology of love poetry, at Garnier frères.

He will act as an intermediary for Baudelaire and will strive, in vain, to reach an agreement with the same Garnier brothers in this year 1865. Exhausted by his situation and feeling forgotten, he always finds in his mother the confidante of his dark moods. However, he does not hide his annoyance towards her: "And if the deal doesn't go through? Madame Aupick could only observe, from Honfleur, the setbacks accumulated by her son.

The poet, in perpetual financial need, ends his letter with an expression of affection for her, his only true support. Armand Godoy Collection Drouot, October 12, 1988, n°203, Pinault Bookstore (1990), then Jacques Martin Collection.

Revue de Paris, December 1, 1917 Graphological comments on Charles Baudelaire, Rougemont, Sté de graphologie, 1922, p. 42-43 (partial reproduction in facsimile) Charles Baudelaire - Unpublished letters to his mother, ed. Jacques Crépet, Louis Conard, 1918, p.