Baudelaire Charles
Charles Baudelaire, His Life
CORRESPONDENCE OF BAUDELAIRE
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
19th March, 1856.
Here, my dear patron, is a kind of literature which will not, perhaps, inspire you with as much enthusiasm as it does me, but which will most surely interest you. It is necessary – that is to say that I desire, that Edgar Poe, who is not very great in America, should become a great man in France. Knowing how brave you are and what a lover of novelty, I have boldly promised your support to Michel Lévy.
Can you write me a line telling me if you will do something in the "Athenæum" or elsewhere? Because, in that case, I would write to M. Lalanne not to entrust this to any one else – your pen having a peculiar authority of which I am in need.
You will see at the end of the Notice (which contradicts all the current opinions in the United States) that I announce new studies. I shall speak of the opinions of this singular man later, in the matter of sciences, philosophy, and literature.
I deliver my always troubled soul into your hands.
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
Wednesday, 26th March, 1856.
You well knew that this scrap of good news would enchant me. Lalanne had been warned by Asselineau, and it would have been necessary for the book to have been given to another person if you had not been able to write the article. Lalanne has received a volume.
I can, with respect to the remainder of your letter, give you some details which will perhaps interest you.
There will be a second volume and a second preface. The first volume is written to draw the Public: "Juggling, hypotheses, false rumours," etc. "Ligeia" is the only important piece which is morally connected with the second volume.
The second volume is more markedly fantastic: "Hallucinations, mental maladies, pure grotesqueness, the supernatural," etc.
The second Preface will contain the analysis of the words that I shall not translate, and, above all, the statement of the scientific and literary opinions of the author. It is even necessary that I should write to M. de Humboldt on this subject to ask him his opinion on a little book which is dedicated to him; it is "Eureka."
The first preface, that you have seen and in which I have tried to comprise a lively protestation against Americanism, is almost complete from the biographical point of view. We shall pretend to wish to consider Poe only as a juggler, but I shall come back at the finish to the supernatural character of his poetry and his stories. He is only American in so far as he is a juggler. Beyond that, the thought is almost anti-American. Besides, he has made fun of his compatriots as much as he could.
Now, the piece to which you allude makes part of the second volume. It is a dialogue between two souls, after the destruction of the earth. There are three dialogues of this kind that I shall be happy to lend you at the end of the month, before delivering my second volume to the printer.
Now, I thank you with all my heart; but you are so kind that you run risks with me. After the Poe will come two volumes of mine, one of critical articles and the other of poems. Thus, I make my excuses to you beforehand; and, besides, I fear that when I shall no longer speak with the voice of a great poet, I shall be for you a brawling and disagreeable being.
Yours ever.
At the end of the second volume of Poe I shall put some specimens of poetry.
I am persuaded that a man so careful as yourself would not wish me to ask him to take note of the orthography of the name [Edgar Poe]. No "d," no diæresis, no accent.
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
9th March, 1857.
My dear friend, you are too indulgent to have taken exception to the impertinent point of interrogation that I have put after the word "souvenir" on the copy of the "Nouvelles histoires extraordinaires," that I laid aside for you yesterday at the "Moniteur." If you can be pleased, I shall think it very natural: you have spoilt me. If you cannot, I shall still find it very natural.
This second volume is of a higher and more poetic nature than two-thirds of the first. The third volume (in process of publication in the "Moniteur") will be preceded by a third notice.
The tale of the end of the world is called "Conversation of Eiros with Charmion."
A new pull has just been made of the first volume, in which the principal faults are corrected. Michel knows that he must keep a copy for you. If I have not the time to bring it to you, I shall have it sent to you.
Your affectionate.
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
Wednesday, 18th August, 1857.
Ah! dear friend, I have something very serious, something very awkward to ask you. I wished to write to you, and then I would rather tell you. For a fortnight my ideas on this subject have been changing; but my lawyer (Chaix d'Est-Ange fils) insists that I talk to you about it, and I should be very happy if you could grant me a little conversation of three minutes to-day wherever you like, at your house or elsewhere. I did not wish to call on you unexpectedly. It always seems to me, when I take my way towards the rue Montparnasse, that I am going to visit that wonderful wise man, seated in a golden tulip, whose voice speaks to intruders with the resounding echo of a trumpet.
This morning I am awaiting some copies of my brochure; I will send you one at the same time.
Your very affectionate.
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
Tuesday, 18th May, 1858.
I think that I drop in upon you as inconveniently as possible, do I not? You are engaged to-day; but, by coming to see you after four o'clock I shall perhaps be able to find you. In any case, whether I deceive myself or not, if you are busy this evening with your affairs, put me to the door like a true friend.
Yours always.
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
14th June, 1858.
DEAR FRIEND,
I have just read your work on "Fanny." Is there any need for me to tell you how charming it is and how surprising it is to see a mind at once so full of health, of herculean health, and at the same time most delicate, most subtle, most femininely fine! (On the subject of feminine fineness I wanted to obey you and to read the work of the stoic. In spite of the respect I ought to have for your authority, I decidedly do not wish that gallantry, chivalry, mysticism, heroism, in fact exuberance and excess, which are what is most charming even in honesty, should be suppressed.)
With you, it is necessary to be cynical; for you are too shrewd for deceit not to be dangerous. Ah well, this article has inspired me with terrible jealousy. So much has been said about Loëve-Weimars and of the service he has rendered to French literature! Shall I not find a champion who will say as much of me?
By some cajolery, most powerful friend, shall I obtain this from you? However, what I ask of you is not an injustice. Did you not offer it to me at first? Are not the "Adventures of Pym" an excellent pretext for a general sketch? You, who love to amuse yourself in all depths, will you not make an excursion into the depths of Edgar Poe? You guess that the request for this service is connected in my mind with the visit I must pay to M. Pelletier. When one has a little money and goes to dine with a former mistress one forgets everything. But there are days when the curses of all the fools mount to one's brain, and then one implores one's old friend, Sainte-Beuve.
Now, truly, of late I have been literally dragged in the mud, and (pity me, it is the first time that I have lacked dignity), I have had the weakness to reply.
I know how busy you are and how full of application for all your lessons, for all your work and duties, etc. But if, sometimes, a little strain were not put on friendliness, on kindness, where would the hero of friendliness be? And if one did not say too much good about brave men, how would they be consoled for the curses of those who only wish to say too much evil?
Finally, I will say to you, as usual, that all that you wish will be good.
Yours ever.
I like you more than I like your books.
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
14th August, 1858.
Is it permitted to come and warm and fortify oneself a little by contact with you? You know what I think of men who are depressants and men who have a tonic influence. If, then, I unsettle you, you must blame your qualification, still more my weakness. I have need of you as of a douche.
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
21st February, 1859.
My dear friend, I do not know if you take in the "Revue française." But, for fear that you should read it, I protest against a certain line (on the subject of "The Flowers of Evil"), page 171, in which the author – who, however, is very intelligent – is guilty of some injustice towards you.
Once, in a newspaper, I have been accused of ingratitude towards two chiefs of ancient romanticism to whom I owe all; it spoke, besides, with a judicial air, of this infamous trash.
This time, in reading this unfortunate line, I said to myself: "Mon Dieu! Sainte-Beuve, who knows my fidelity, but who knows that I am connected with the author, will perhaps believe that I have been capable of prompting this passage." It is exactly the contrary; I have quarrelled with Babou many a time in order to persuade him that you would always do everything you ought and could do.
A short time ago I was talking to Malassis of this great friendship, which does me honour and to which I owe so much good advice. The monster left me no peace until I gave him the long letter that you sent me at the time of my lawsuit, and which will serve, perhaps, as a plan for the making of a Preface. New "Flowers" are done, and passably out of the ordinary. Here, in repose, fluency has come back to me. There is one of them ("Danse macabre") which ought to have appeared on the 15th, in the "Revue contemporaine…"
I have not forgotten your Coleridge, but I have been a month without receiving any books, and to run through the 2,400 pages of Poe is some small labour.
Sincerely yours, and write to me if you have time.
Honfleur, Calvados (this address is sufficient).
What has become of the old rascal? (d'Aurevilly).
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
28th February, 1859.
My dear friend, I learn that you have asked Malassis to communicate to you what you wrote to me on the subject of the "Flowers." Malassis is a little astounded; furthermore, he is ill. There were two letters; one, a friendly, complimentary letter; the other, a scheme of the address that you gave to me on the eve of my lawsuit. As, one day, I was classifying papers with Malassis, he begged me to give him that, and when I told him I intended to make use of it (not by copying but by paraphrasing and developing it) he said to me: "All the more reason. You will always find it again at my house. If your printer had it, it could not get lost."
I even think I remember having said to Malassis: "If I had pleaded my cause myself and if I had known how to develop this thesis, that a lawyer could not understand, I should doubtless have been acquitted."
I understand absolutely nothing of this nonsense in the "Revue française." The manager, however, seems to be a very well-bred young man. Every one knows that you have rendered many services to men younger than yourself. How has M. M – printed this without making representations to Babou and without finding out what prejudice he had towards me?
Malassis, on whom I had not counted at all, has also seen the passage, and his letter is still more severe than yours.
I am going to Paris on the 4th or 5th. It would be very kind of you to write a word to Mme. Duval, 22, rue Beautreillis, to let me know if and when you wish to see me. I shall stay at her house.
Yours sincerely.
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
3rd or 4th March, 1859.
A thousand thanks for your excellent letter. It has reassured me, but I think you are too sensitive. If ever I attain as good a position as yours, I shall be a man of stone. I have just read a very funny article of the "rascal" on Chateaubriand and M. de Marcellus, his critic. He has not missed the over easy witticism: "Tu Marcellus eris!"
In replying to Babou (what was important to me was to assure myself that you did not believe me capable of a meanness) I think that you attribute too much importance to him. He gives me the impression of being one of those people who believe that the pen is made to play tricks with. Boys' tricks, school hoaxes.
Yours sincerely.
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
1860.
DEAR FRIEND,
I am writing to you beforehand, for precaution, because I have so strong a presentiment that I shall not have the pleasure of finding you.
I wrote recently to M. Dalloz a letter couched as nearly as possible like the following:
"Render account of the 'Paradis artificiels'! I know Messrs. So-and-so, So-and-so, etc., on the 'Moniteur.'"
Reply of Dalloz:
"The book is worthy of Sainte-Beuve. (It is not I speaking.) Pay a visit to M. Sainte-Beuve about it."
I should not have dared to think so. Numerous reasons, of which I guess part, perhaps estrange you from it, and perhaps also the book does not please you.
However, I have more than ever need of being upheld, and I ought to have given you an account of my perplexity.
All that has been said about this essay has not any common sense, absolutely none.
P.S. – A few days ago, but then for the pure need of seeing you, as Antæus had need of the Earth, I went to the rue Montparnasse. On the way I passed a gingerbread shop, and the fixed idea took hold of me that you must like gingerbread. Note that nothing is better in wine at dessert; and I felt that I was going to drop in on you at dinner-time.
I sincerely hope that you will not have taken the piece of gingerbread, encrusted with angelica, for an idle joke, and that you will have eaten it in all simplicity.
If you share my taste, I recommend you, when you can get it, English gingerbread, very thick, very black, so close that it has neither holes nor pores, full of ginger and aniseed. It is cut in slices as thin as roast beef, and can be spread with butter or preserve. Yours always. Love me well… I am passing through a great crisis.
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
End of January, 1862.
Still another service that I owe you! When will this end? And how shall I thank you?
The article had escaped me. That explains to you the delay before beginning to write to you.
A few words, my dear friend, to paint for you the peculiar kind of pleasure that you have obtained for me. Many years ago I was very much wounded (but I said nothing) to hear myself spoken of as a churl, an impossible and crabbed man. Once, in a wicked journal, I read some lines about my repulsive ugliness, well designed to alienate all sympathy (it was hard for a man who has loved the perfume of woman so well). One day a woman said to me: "It is curious, you are very presentable; I thought that you were always drunk and that you smelt evilly." She spoke according to the tale.
Now, my friend, you have put all that right, and I am very grateful to you for it – I, who have always said that it was not sufficient to be wise, but that above all it was necessary to be agreeable.
As for what you call my Kamtschatka, if I often received encouragements as vigorous as that, I believe that I should have the strength to make an immense Siberia of it, but a warm and populous one. When I see your activity, your vitality, I am quite ashamed; happily, I have sudden leaps and crises in my character which replace, though very inadequately, the action of sustained willingness.
Must I, the incorrigible lover of the "Rayons jaunes" and of "Volupté," of Sainte-Beuve the poet and novelist, now compliment the journalist? How do you arrive at this certainty of pen which allows you to say everything and makes a game of every difficulty for you? This article is not a pamphlet, for it is a righteousness. One thing struck me, and that is that I found again there all your eloquence in conversation, with its good sense and its petulances.
Really, I should have liked to collaborate in it a little – forgive this pride – I should have been able to give you two or three enormities that you have omitted through ignorance. I will tell you all this in a good gossip.
Ah, and your Utopia! the great way of driving the "vague, so dear to great nobles," from elections! Your Utopia has given me a new pride. I, also, have done it, Utopia, reform; – is it an old revolutionary movement that drove me, also, long ago, to make schemes for a constitution? There is this great difference, that yours is quite viable and that perhaps the day is not far off when it will be adopted.
Poulet-Malassis is burning to make a pamphlet of your admirable article…
I ask you to promise to find some minutes to reply to the following:
Great trouble, the necessity of working, physical ills, have interfered with my proceedings.
At last I have fifteen examples of my principal books. My very restricted distribution list is made.
I think it is good policy to put up for the Lacordaire chair. There are no literary men there. It was first of all my own design, and, if I had not done so, it was not to disobey you and not to appear too eccentric. If you think my idea good, I will write a letter to M. Villemain before next Wednesday, in which I will briefly say that it seems to me that the choice of a candidate must not only be directed by the desire of success, but must also be a sympathetic homage to the memory of the deceased. Besides, Lacordaire is a romantic priest, and I love him. Perhaps I shall slur over the word "romantic" in the letter, but not without consulting you.
It is imperative that this terrible rhetorician, this so grave and unkindly man, should read my letter; this man who preaches while he talks, with the expression and the solemnity (but not with the good faith) of Mlle. Lenormand. I have seen this lady in the robe of a professor, set in her chair, like a Quasimodo, and she had over M. Villemain the advantage of a very sympathetic voice.
If, by chance, M. Villemain is dear to you, I at once take back all that I have just said; and, for love of you, I shall do my best to find him lovable.
However, I cannot help thinking that, as a papist, I am worth more than him … even though I am a very-much-suspected Catholic.
I want, in spite of my tonsure and my white hairs, to speak to you as a little boy. My mother, who is very much bored, is continually asking me for novelties. I have sent her your article. I know what maternal pleasure she will draw from it. Thank you for me and for her.
Your very devoted.
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
Monday evening, 3rd February, 1862.
My dear friend, I am trying hard to guess those hours which are your leisure hours, and I cannot succeed. I have not written a word, in accordance with your advice; but I am patiently continuing my visits, in order to let it be well understood that I want, with regard to the election in replacement of Father Lacordaire, to gather some votes from men of letters. I think that Jules Sandeau will speak to you about me; he has said to me very graciously: "You catch me too late, but I will go and find out if there is anything to be done for you."
Twice I have seen Alfred de Vigny, who has kept me three hours each time. He is an admirable and delightful man, but not fitted for action, and even dissuading from action. However, he has shown me the warmest sympathy.
You do not know that the month of January has been a month of fretfulness and neuralgia for me… I say this in order to explain the interruption in my proceedings.
I have seen Lamartine, Patin, Viennet, Legouvé, de Vigny, Villemain (horror!), Sandeau. Really, I do not remember any others. I have not been able to find either Ponsard, or M. Saint-Marc Girardin, or de Sacy.
At last I have sent a few copies of some books to ten of those whose works I know. This week I shall see some of these gentlemen.
I have written an analysis, such as it is, of your excellent article (without signing it; but my conduct is infamous, is it not?) in the "Revue anecdotique" As for the article itself, I have sent it to M. de Vigny, who did not know it, and who showed me that he wished to read it.
As for the talkers of politics, among whom I shall not be able to find any pleasure, I shall go the round of them in a carriage. They shall have only my card and not my face.
This evening I have read your "Pontmartin." Pardon me for saying to you, "What lost talent!" In your prodigality there is at times something which scandalises me. It seems to me that I, after having said, "The most noble causes are sometimes upheld by bumpkins," I should have considered my work finished. But you have particular talents for suggestion and divination. Even towards the most culpable beasts you are delightfully polished. This Monsieur Pontmartin is a great hater of literature…
I have sent you a little parcel of sonnets. I will next send you several packets of reveries in prose, without counting a huge work on the "Painters of Morals" (crayon, water-colour, printing, engraving).
I do not ask you if you are well. That is sufficiently apparent.
I embrace you and shake you by the hands. – I leave your house.
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
15th March, 1865.
Dear friend, I take advantage of the "Histoires grotesques et sérieuses" to remind myself of you. Sometimes, in the mornings, I talk about you with M. Muller, of Liège, by whose side I take luncheon, – and in the evening, after dinner, I am re-reading "Joseph Delorme" with Malassis. Decidedly, you are right; "Joseph Delorme" is the old woman's "Flowers of Evil." The comparison is glorious for me. Have the goodness not to find it offensive to yourself.
And the Preface of the "Vie de César?" Is it predestinarian enough?
Yours always.
BRUXELLES, RUE DE LA MONTAGNE, 28.
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
Thursday, 30th March, 1865.
My dear friend, I thank you for your excellent letter; can you write any which are not excellent? When you call me "My dear son," you touch me and make me laugh at the same time. In spite of my many white hairs, which make me look (to the stranger) like an academician, I have great need of some one who loves me enough to call me his "son"; but I cannot help thinking of that burgrave of 120 years of age who, speaking to a burgrave of eighty, said to him: "Young man, be silent!" (In parentheses – and let this be between us – if I wrote a tragedy I should be afraid of letting fly some shafts of this energy and of hitting another target than that at which I had aimed.)
Only, I observe that in your letter there is no allusion to the copy of "Histoires grotesques et sérieuses" that I asked Michel Lévy to send you. I swear to you, besides, that I have no intention whatever of getting the least advertisement for this book out of you. My only aim was, knowing as you well know how to distribute your time, to provide you with an occasion for enjoying once more an amazing subtlety of logic and sensations. There are people who will find that the fifth volume is inferior to the preceding ones; but that is of no consequence to me.
We are not as bored as you think, Malassis and I. We have learnt to go without everything, in a country where there is nothing, and we have understood that certain pleasures (those of conversation, for example) grow in proportion as certain needs diminish.
On the subject of Malassis, I will tell you that I marvel at his courage, at his activity, and his incorrigible gaiety. He has arrived at a very surprising erudition in point of books and prints. Everything amuses him and everything teaches him. One of our chief amusements is when he pretends to play the atheist and when I try to play the Jesuit. You know that I can become religious by contradiction (above all here) so that, to make me impious, it would be sufficient to put me in contact with a slovenly curé (slovenly of body and soul). As for the publication of some humorous books which it has pleased him to amend with the same piety that he would have put at the service of Bossuet or Loyola, even I have drawn from them a little, little unexpected gain: it is a clearer understanding of the French Revolution. When people amuse themselves in a certain way, it is a good diagnosis of revolution.
Alexander Dumas has just left us. This fine man has come to show himself with his ordinary candour. In flocking round him to get a shake of the hand, the Belgians made fun of him… That is unworthy. A man can be worthy of respect for his vitality. Vitality of the negro, it is true. But I think that many others, besides myself, lovers of the serious, have been carried away by "La Dame de Montsoreau" and by "Balsamo."
As I am very impatient to return to France, I have written to J. L. to commission him with my small affairs. I would like to collect, in three or four volumes, the best of my articles on the "Stimulants," the "Painters," and the "Poets," adding thereto a series of "Observations on Belgium." If, in one of your rare strolls, you go along the boulevard de Gand, stir up his good feeling a little and exaggerate what you think of me.
I must own that three important fragments are lacking, one on Didactic Painting (Cornélius, Kaulbach, Chenavard, Alfred Réthel), another, "Biography of the Flowers of Evil," and then a last: "Chateaubriand and his Family." You know that my passion for this old dandy is incorrigible. To sum up, little work; ten days perhaps. I am rich in notes.
Pardon me if I intrude in a delicate question; my excuse is my desire to see you content (supposing that certain things would content you) and to see every one do you justice. I hear many people saying, "What! Sainte-Beuve is not yet a senator?" Many years ago I said to E. Delacroix, to whom I could speak my mind, that many young men preferred to see him remaining in the state of an outcast and rebel. (I alluded to his stubbornness in presenting himself at the Institute.) He replied: "My dear sir, if my right arm was struck by paralysis, my capacity as member of the Institute would give me the right of teaching, and if I always keep well the Institute can serve to pay my coffee and cigars. In two words, I think that, with regard to you, it resolves itself into a certain accusation of ingratitude against the government of Napoleon, in many other minds besides mine." You forgive me, do you not? for violating the limits of discretion; you know how much I love you; and then I chatter like some one who rarely has an opportunity for talking.
I have just read Émile Ollivier's long discourse. It is very extraordinary. He speaks, it seems, with the authority of a man who has a great secret in his pocket.
Have you read Janin's abominable article against melancholy and mocking poets? And Viennet, quoted amongst the great poets of France! And a fortnight after, an article in favour of Cicero! Do they take Cicero for an Orleanist or an academician? M. de Sacy says: "Cicero is our Cæsar, ours!" Oh no, he is not, is he?
Your very affectionate.
Without any transition, I will tell you that I have just found an admirable melancholy ode by Shelley, composed on the shores of the Gulf of Naples, and which ends with these words:
"I know that I am one of those whom men do not love; but I am one of those whom they remember." Very good! this is poetry!
Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve
Thursday 4th May, 1865.
MY DEAR SAINTE-BEUVE, – As I take up a pen to write you some words of congratulation on your nomination, I find a letter that I wrote you on March 31st which has not yet gone, probably because of stupidity on my part or on the part of the hotel people.
I have read it again. I find it boyish, childish. But I send it to you just the same. If it makes you laugh, I shall not say "So much the worse," but "So much the better." I am not at all afraid, knowing your indulgence, to strip myself before you.
To the passage which treats of J. L. I shall add that I have finished the fragments in question (except the book on Belgium, which I have not the courage to finish here) and that, obliged to go to Honfleur to seek all the other pieces composing the books announced to L… I shall doubtless go on to Paris on the 15th, in order to torment him a little. If, by chance, you see him, you can tell him.
As for Malassis, his terrible affair happens on the 12th, He thinks he is sure to be condemned to five years. The serious thing is that this closes France to him for five years. That this momentarily cuts off supplies, I do not think so great an evil. He will be constrained to do other things. It is more to count on the universal mind than to brave compulsory public decency. As for me, who am not a prude, I have never possessed one of these silly books, even printed in beautiful characters and with beautiful illustrations.
Alas! the "Poems in Prose" to which you have again sent a recent encouragement, are much delayed. I am always giving myself difficult work. To make a hundred laborious trifles which demand unfailing good-humour (good-humour necessary even to treat of sad subjects), a strange stimulant which needs sights, crowds, music, even street-lamps, that is what I wanted to do! I am only at sixty and I can go no further. I need this famous "bath of the multitude" of which the error has justly shocked you.
M. has come here. I have read your article. I have admired your suppleness and your aptitude to enter into the soul of all the talents. But to this talent there is something lacking which I cannot define. M. has gone to Anvers, where there are magnificent things – above all, examples of this monstrous, Jesuitical style which pleases me so much, and which I hardly know except from the chapel of the college at Lyons, which is made with different coloured marbles. Anvers has a museum of a very special kind, full of unexpected things, even for those who can put the Flemish school in its true place. Finally, this town has the grand, solemn air of an old capital, accentuated by a great river. I believe that this fine fellow has seen nothing of all this. He has only seen a fat fry that he has gone from the other side of the Escaut to eat. He is, nevertheless, a charming man.
