CB - new

Je ne m'en afflige pas.

I am not troubled by it. (CB, Préface)

Auguste Poulet-Malassis

CB’s long-suffering publisher, eventuallywent bankrupt in 1861 and was even sent to debtor's prison. Despite the financial ruin, Poulet-Malassis remained a fiercely loyal friend, caring for Baudelaire during his final, illness-ridden years in Belgium.

Caroline Aupick

CB's mother and a prominent figure in his life, who married Jacques Aupick, a rigid, highly disciplined military officer who later became a general and a diplomat, who was so appalled by Charles's lifestyle, debts, and poetry that he eventually had the family place Charles under a legal guardianship (conseil de famille), so that he lost control of his inheritance.

Je ne m'en réjouis pas.

I am not happy about it. (CB, Préface)

Les élégiaques sont des canailles.

Elegiac poets are scoundrels. (CB, Préface, because they exploint cheap emotion for their own gain. Raditcal anti-Romanticism)

It est plus difficile d’aimer Dieu que de croire en lui. Au contraire, il est plus difficile pour les gens de ce siècle de croire au diable que l’aimer.

It is more difficult to love God than to believe in Him. On the contrary, it is harder for people of this century to believe in the devil than to love Him. (CB, Préface)

Nous somme tous pendus ou pendable.

We are all either hanged or hangable. (Every person is condemned or fully deserves to be condemned. We are all fallen, a radical expression of human guilt. (CB, Préface, 248)

Avertissement

Editor’s Disclaimer: functions as a preface to explain how the letters were found, how they were selected, or why certain names were left out or redacted to protect living people at the time of printing.

les retranchements

the cuts or omissions made in a text to preserve anonymity or protect sensitive information.

la mémoires des tiers

the collective memory of third parties (of others who influenced and shaped the recollection)

son irascibilité

his quick temper

Jean Wallon

1821–1882 – writer, philosopher, and theologian who belonged to Baudelaire's intimate circle of Latin Quarter bohemians during the 1840s and 1850s. Baudelaire's letters to Wallon alternate between playful social arrangements, such as an enigmatic 1850 letter inviting Wallon to breakfast at the Estaminet de Paris to "see a singular man"—and intellectual exchanges where Wallon would send Baudelaire his theological or philosophical tracts (such as his work on Hegel or Christian philosophy) looking for the poet's candid critique.

la feuille

galley proofs, one large sheet of paper, which was then folded down to form a grouping of pages. Baudelaire was famously obsessive. He would demand multiple revisions (première épreuve, deuxième épreuve) for a single feuille just to perfect a single comma, semi-colon, or capitalization.

corrigée avec bon à tirer

corrected proof ready for printing (indicating final approval from the author before publication)

Foutez-vous de moi

are you kidding me? (conveying disbelief or annoyance)

tout le monde va se foutre de vous.

everyone will make fun of you.

De quoi se mêle-t-il?

What business is it of his?

Moi qui suis un remarquable échantillon de crapule et d'ignorance

I'm a remarkable sample of scoundrel and ignorance. (35)

une étourderie de ma part,

an oversight on my part

Je viens de voir Th. Guatier, qui me mettra un fragment à l'Artist.

I have just seen Th. Gautier, who will include a piece of mine in L'Artiste.

Gautier m'a parlé d'Émaux et Camées comme d'une chose libre dont il refuserait la réimpression à n'importe.

He spoke to me of Enamels and Cameos as a book whose reprinting he would refuse at any cost.

mais il galope toujours sur son dada de beauté typographique

but he’s still riding his hobbyhorse of typographic beauty

galoper sur son dada

a classic French idiom that translates literally to "galloping on one's hobby-horse” (to obessively harp on a personal obsession)

J'aurais présumé qu'à cause de vous M. Larcher n'aurait pas apporté son contingent à ce haro.

I would have assumed that, because of you, Mr. Larcher would not have contributed his share to this outcry.

à ce haro

a phrase used to express a fervent objection or outcry against something, often in a context of indignation.

sa livraison

its installment (fascicle); novels and collections were distributed by drip-feeding them to the public in successive pamphlets. Hence, "la première livraison de cet ouvrage," meant the first distributed installment available to subscribers.

Je m'escrime contre une trentaine de verse insuffisant, mal rimants.

I struggle against some thirty inadequate, poorly rhyming lines of verse.

la souplesse

flexibility

le Moniteur universel

Official state-sponsored newspaper of the French government during the Second Empire. Baudelaire relied on the paper for income, but his relationship with its directors (like Édouard Dalloz) was highly fraught. He was notoriously terrible with deadlines, and his letters are full of anxiety about the paper "hounding" or "chasing" him for copy. He published high-profile art and literary reviews there, and his translation of Edgar Allan Poe's novel. After CB died in 1867, it was Gautier's major obituary published in Le Moniteur that went on to become the famous introductory preface to Baudelaire's posthumous Oeuvres complètes.

Je sors de chez le relieur.

I coming back from the bookbinder's.

Gustave Rouland

1806–1878 - was a powerful French magistrate and high-ranking politician who served as Napoleon III's Minister of Public Instruction and Religious Affairs. When CB’s FM went on trial for "outrage to public morality" in August 1857, it fell under the political climate engineered by Rouland's ministry. Rouland was heavily invested in maintaining strict moral order, and it was the imperial prosecutors working under this administration who successfully forced Baudelaire to censor six "condemned" poems and pay a heavy fine.

à cautériser ma fainéantise par un travail acharné

to cauterize my laziness through relentless hard work