Charles BAUDELAIRE
Lettre autographe signée adressée à sa mère : « Tu sais cependant bien que ma destinée est mauvaise. »
[Paris] 13 [juillet] 1858 (mal datée « juin »), 13,3x20,6cm, 2 pages sur un feuillet remplié.
[Paris] 13 [July] 1858 (wrongly dated “June”), 13.3 x 20.6cm, 2 pages one folded leaf.
Signed letter hand-written to his mother: “Tu sais cependant bien que ma destinée est mauvaise,” “You know, however, that my destiny is bad.”Signed letter hand-written by Charles Baudelaire, written in paper pencil, addressed to his mother. Dry-stamped headed paper from the Grand Hôtel Voltaire, Faubourg Saint-Germain. Madame Aupick's address in Honfleur (Calvados) in the author's hand, as well as several postage stamps dated 13 and 14 July 1858. Some highlighting, crossing out and corrections by the author. Signs of a wax seal with Charles Baudelaire's initials in pencil, likely written by the author. A small section of paper from the second leaf has been removed, without affecting the text.
This letter was published for the first time in the Revue de Paris on 15 September 1917.
Former collection Armand Godoy, n° 102.
Precious document, testimony of a decisive moment in the poet's life?: the reconcilliation with now widowed Aupick, this sacred mother “qui hante le cœur et l'esprit de son fils,” “who haunts the heart and spirit of her son.”
The victorious Baudelaire has overcome the obstacle that was his cumbersome step-father, whose death he had even wished for?: he is ready to resume his place next to his mother, from whom he often felt abandoned. After the death of her husband in April 1857, the latter invited her son to come and live with her in her “maison-joujou,” “toy house” in Honfleur. This letter shows us a Baudelaire beset by complex feelings?: torn between his aspiration to a live perfectly together and his inexorable attraction to the spleen.
For the “bas bohème,” “low bohemian,” (as the Goncourt call him), harassed by creditors, Honfleur and the exclusive attention of his mother, it is the promises of fulfilling his poetic destiny. It is in these terms that the poet shares this hope with his friends, Antoine Jaquotot in particular (who is also quoted at the end of this letter that we have to offer)?: “Je veux décidément mener cette vie de retraite que mène un de mes amis, [...] qui, par la vie commune qu'il entretient avec sa mère a trouvé un repos d'esprit suffisant pour accomplir récemment une fort belle œuvre et devenir célèbre d'un seul coup.” (20 février 1858) “I truly want to lead this life of retirement, led by one of my friends, [...] who, by living with his mother has found sufficient peace of mind to accomplish recently a very beautiful piece of work and become famous in one fell swoop.” (20 February 1858)
“Tu vas, dans peu de jours, recevoir le commencement de mon déménagement [...]. Ce seront d'abord des livres - tu les rangeras proprement dans la chambre que tu me destines. » “In a few days, you will receive the beginning of my move [...]. Firstly, this will be books - you will strictly put them in the room that you have assigned for me.” With these books, he entrusts his mother with the task of making him a perfect place in which to be creative.
However, on the edge of his promises and hopes for a life that is finally calm and serene, Baudelaire's attachment to his life as a cursed poet betrays him?: “Tu sais cependant bien que ma destinée est mauvaise,” “You know only too well that my destiny is bad.” Beyond his “nouveaux embarras d'argent,” “his new money predicament,” it is now his work that keeps him in capital?: “Si mon premier morceau à la Revue contemporaine a été retardé, c'est uniquement parce que je l'ai voulu ; j'ai voulu revoir, relire, recommencer et corriger,” “If my first piece for the Revue Contemporaine was delayed, it is only because I wanted it; I wanted to review, reread, restart and correct.” The “premier morceau,” “first piece,” that Baudelaire writes of is non other than “De l'Idéal artificiel, le Haschisch,” the first text in the forthcoming Paradis artificiels (1860), which will appear only in the 30 September 1858 issue of the magazine. This passage in the letter, showing Baudelaire's relentless perfectionism, recalls the sprawling complexity of the poet's drafts and proofs that, until the last minute (even on the first copies of his Fleurs du Mal, see our copy), he doesn't stop correcting them meticulously. Despite his financial problems, the poet corrects and modifies tirelessly, being then able to only offer a very limited number of items. However, Baudelaire believes more than ever in his enrichment through writing and promises: “Cette fois-ci je m'en tirerai à moi tout seul, sans emprunter un sol.” “This time I will manage alone, without borrowing a sou.”
Baudelaire will finally leave Paris for Honfleur in January 1859 and he will not stay there. Within a few weeks, he will miss the Parisian excitement and Jeanne Duval in particular who demands it?: he leaves his mother for his lover and returns to his Babylon, inexorably attracted by the spleen. Until his exile to Belgium, he will then only ever visit Honfleur briefly, but these Norman digressions, far from the temptations of the capital, are the most profitable for the poet?: “Les séjours à Honfleur durant l'hiver et au printemps correspondent à une étonnante période de fécondité et à un état physiologique relativement satisfaisant. [...] C'est le second apogée de sa vie créatrice, le premier devant être situé entre 1842 et 1846,” “The winter and spring stays in Honfleur correspond to a surprising period of productivity and to a relatively satisfactory mental state. [...] It is the second peak of his creative life, the first being between 1842 and 1846.” (Claude Pichois & Jean Ziegler, Baudelaire, p. 385). It is indeed beside his mother that the poet mends his Fleurs du Mal?: he rebalances the collection by compensating for the disappearance of the condemned poems for the composition of several new “Fleurs,” “Flowers”. Thus, he offers his readers, not only his monumental “Voyage,” but also “L'albatros” and even “La chevelure.”
Through this moving announcement of a return to the fold, for a time the poet becomes the prodigal son, promising his “chère petite mère,” “dear mother,” his affection, “Il faut des miracles et je les ferai,” “Miracles are needed I will get them,” and proclaiming his vital need to exist in her eyes?: “Seulement, admire-moi?!” “Only admire me?!”
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