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Charles Pierre Baudelaire 1821 – 1867 was a nineteenth century French poet, critic and translator.

Baudelaire was a friend of Honore de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Paul Ferdinand Gachet, Theophile Gautier, Victor Hugo, Edouard Manet and many others.

Baudelaire was influenced by Emanuel Swedenborg.

The poet Theophile Gautier, for instance, received hashish samples from Moreau de Tours. In 1843 he described extensively a self-experienced hashish intoxication in the Paris newspaper La Presse under the title ‘Le Club des Hachichins’. The club of hashish eaters, of which Gauthier was one of the founders, had regular meetings in Hôtel Pimodan on the Seine island of St Louis.

He and Charles Baudelaire shared a penthouse in the hotel for several years. Other prominent club members were Alexandre Dumas and Honore Daumier. Further well known contemporaries such as Honore de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert and Victor Hugo participated occasionally.

Baudelaire was born in Paris, France in 1821. His father, a senior civil servant and amateur artist, died during Baudelaire’s childhood in 1827. The following year, his mother, Caroline, thirty four years younger than his father, married Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Aupick, who later became a French ambassador to various noble courts.

Baudelaire’s relationship with his mother was a close and complex one, and it dominated his life. He later stated “I loved my mother for her elegance. I was a precocious dandy”. He later wrote to her “There was in my childhood a period of passionate love for you”. Aupick, a rigid disciplinarian, though concerned for Baudelaire’s upbringing and future, quickly came to odds with his stepson’s artistic temperament.

Baudelaire was educated in Lyon, where he was forced to board away from his mother (even during holidays) and accept his stepfather’s rigid methods, which included depriving him of visits home when his grades slipped.

He wrote when recalling those times: “A shudder at the grim years of claustration… the unease of wretched and abandoned childhood, the hatred of tyrannical schoolfellows, and the solitude of the heart”.

At fourteen, Baudelaire was described by a classmate: “He was much more refined and distinguished than any of our fellow pupils… we are bound to one another… by shared tastes and sympathies, the precocious love of fine works of literature”. Later, he attended the Lycée Louis le Grand in Paris. Baudelaire was erratic in his studies, at times diligent, at other times prone to “idleness”.

At eighteen, Baudelaire was described as “an exalted character, sometimes full of mysticism, and sometimes full of immorality and cynicism (which were excessive but only verbal)”. Upon gaining his degree in 1839, he was undecided about his future. He told his brother “I don’t feel I have a vocation for anything”.

His stepfather had in mind a career in law or diplomacy, but instead Baudelaire decided to embark upon a literary career, and for the next two years led an irregular life, socializing with other bohemian artists and writers.

Baudelaire began to frequent prostitutes and may have contracted gonorrhea and syphilis during this period. He went to a pharmacist known for venereal disease treatments, upon the recommendation of his older brother Alphonse, a magistrate. For a while, he took on a prostitute named “Sara” as his mistress and lived with his brother when his funds were low.

His stepfather kept him on a tight allowance which he spent as quickly as he received it. Baudelaire began to run up debts, mostly for clothes. His stepfather demanded an accounting and wrote to Alphonse: “The moment has come when something must be done to save your brother from absolute perdition”.

In the hope of reforming him and making a man of him, his stepfather sent him on a voyage to Calcutta, India in 1841, under the care of a former naval captain. Baudelaire’s mother was distressed both by his poor behavior and by the proposed solution. The arduous trip, however, did nothing to turn Baudelaire’s mind away from a literary career or from his casual attitude toward life, so the naval captain agreed to let Baudelaire return home.

Though Baudelaire later exaggerated his aborted trip to create a legend about his youthful travels and experiences, including “riding on elephants”, the trip did provide strong impressions of the sea, sailing, and exotic ports, that he later employed in his poetry.

Baudelaire returned to Paris after less than a year’s absence. Much to his parents’ chagrin, he was more determined than ever to continue with his literary career. His mother later recalled: “Oh, what grief! If Charles had let himself be guided by his stepfather, his career would have been very different… He would not have left a name in literature, it is true, but we should have been happier, all three of us”.

Soon, Baudelaire returned to the taverns to philosophize and to recite his unpublished poems, and to enjoy the adulation of his artistic peers. At twenty one, he received a good sized inheritance of over 100,000 francs, plus four parcels of land, but squandered much of it within a few years, including borrowing heavily against his mortgages. He quickly piled up debts far exceeding his annual income and, out of desperation, his family obtained a decree to place his property in trust.

During this time he met Jeanne Duval, the illegitimate daughter of a prostitute from Nantes, who was to become his longest romantic association. She had been the mistress of the caricaturist and photographer Nadar. His mother thought Jeanne a “Black Venus” who “tortured him in every way” and drained him of money at every opportunity.

While still unpublished in 1843, Baudelaire became known in artistic circles as a dandy and free spender, buying up books, art and antiques he couldn’t afford. By 1844, he was eating on credit and half his inheritance was gone. Baudelaire regularly implored his mother for money while he tried to advance his career.

He met Honore de Balzac around this time and began to write many of the poems which would appear in Les Fleurs du mal. His first published work was his art review “Salon of 1845″, which attracted immediate attention for its boldness. Many of his critical opinions were novel in their time, including his championing of Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix, but have since been generally accepted.

Baudelaire proved himself to be a well informed and passionate critic and he gained the attention of the greater art community.

That summer, however, despondent about his meager income, rising debts, loneliness and doubtful future, because “the fatigue of falling asleep and the fatigue of waking are unbearable”, he decided to commit suicide and leave the remainder of his inheritance to his mistress. However, he lost his resolve and wounded himself with a knife only superficially.

He implored his mother to visit him as he recovered but she ignored his pleas, perhaps under orders from her husband. For a time, Baudelaire was homeless and completely estranged from his parents, until they relented due to his poor condition.

In 1846, Baudelaire wrote his second Salon review, gaining additional credibility as an advocate and critic of Romanticism. His support of Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix as the foremost Romantic artist gained widespread notice. The following year Baudelaire’s novella La Fanfarlo was published.

Baudelaire took part in the Revolutions of 1848. For some years, he was interested in republican politics; but his political tendencies were more emotional positions than steadfast convictions, spanning the Blanqui, the history of the Raison d’Ėtat of Giuseppe Ferrari and ultramontane critique of liberalism of Joseph de Maistre. His stepfather, also caught up in the Revolution, survived the mob and was appointed envoy extraordinary to Turkey by the new government despite his ties to the deposed royal family.

In the early 1850s, Baudelaire struggled with poor health, pressing debts, and irregular literary output. He often moved from one lodging to another and maintained an uneasy relationship with his mother, frequently imploring her by letter for money. (Her letters to him have not been found.)

He received many projects that he was unable to complete, though he did finish translations of stories by Edgar Allan Poe which were published in La Pays. Baudelaire had learned English in his childhood, and Gothic novels, such as Matthew Lewis’s The Monk, and Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, became some of his favorite reading matter, and major influences.

Upon the death of his stepfather in 1857, Baudelaire received no mention in the will but he was heartened nonetheless that the division with his mother might now be mended. Still strongly tied to her emotionally, at thirty six he wrote her: “believe that I belong to you absolutely, and that I belong only to you”….

By 1859, his illnesses, his long term use of laudanum, his life of stress and poverty had taken a toll and Baudelaire had aged noticeably. But at last, his mother relented and agreed to let him live with her for a while at Honfleur. Baudelaire was productive and at peace in the seaside town, his poem Le Voyage being one example of his efforts during that time.

^]In 1860, he became an ardent supporter of Wilhelm Richard Wagner.

His financial difficulties increased again, however, particularly after his publisher Poulet Malassis went bankrupt in 1861. In 1864, he left Paris for Belgium, partly in the hope of selling the rights to his works and also to give lectures. His long standing relationship with Jeanne Duval continued on and off, and he helped her to the end of his life.

Baudelaire’s relationships with actress Marie Daubrun and with courtesan Apollonie Sabatier, though the source of much inspiration, never produced any lasting satisfaction.

He smoked opium, and in Brussels he began to drink to excess. Baudelaire suffered a massive stroke in 1866 and paralysis followed. The last two years of his life were spent, in a semi paralyzed state, in “maisons de santé” in Brussels and in Paris, where he died on 31 August 1867. Baudelaire is buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris.

Many of Baudelaire’s works were published posthumously. After his death, his mother paid off his substantial debts, and at last she found some comfort in Baudelaire’s emerging fame. “I see that my son, for all his faults, has his place in literature”. She lived another four years.