Charles Baudelaire was born of parents who were honest, though not exactly poor. His father, Francis Baudelaire, was of good peasant extraction, received a sound education, and became attached to the house and service of the Duke of Praslin. During the Terror he suffered for his aristocratic proclivities, but managed to save his neck, and when brighter times dawned, appears to have recovered some of his worldly advantages. He married twice, and it was on April 9th, 1821 in Paris that the first child of his second marriage was born and christened Charles Peter. After his father’s death which occurred in 1827, his mother, who was little more than one third the age of her husband, married again in the following year. Her second matrimonial venture was a M. Aupick, Lieutenant-Colonel in the army, whose regiment was garrisoned at Lyons. There he took his wife, and there also he sent his stepson to school. Returning to Paris in 1836, Col. Aupick placed young Baudelaire in the Louis the Great College. He had evidently been impressed by the uncommon characteristics of his stepson, for, on presenting him to the headmaster, he observed: “Here is a treasure I am bringing you, a young scholar who will do honor to your college.” Baudelaire had in fact, some scholastic success, but the magic of number and of rhythm had already captivated his imagination, and he soon consecrated himself to the Muses. One of his old schoolmates tells us that, “whilst the mathematical classes were going on, we passed the time in writing verses as hard as our pens could run. I still remember some of them, but they do not exactly resemble those which he gave to the public in later years.” The originality of the young poet, however, was not slow to appear. A piece of verse of his, composed after a trip in the Pyrenees in 1838, is remarkable as the production of a lad of seventeen. Here are a couple of stanzas from it:
On these mountains where the winds efface all vestiges
These glaciers pallid, which the sun lights up.
On these high rocks, where dizziness waylays one,
In this land, where the evening mirrors its vermilion.
Under my feet, o’er my head, everywhere silence—
Silence which makes one yearn to escape;
The silence eternal on the mountain universal,
For the air is immovable, and all seems to dream.
Baudelaire left college in 1839, for what reason is not known, but there is in his autobiographical sketch this following mysterious line: “Boyhood, expulsion from house, the great B.A. degree.”
As to the degree, the tradition goes that Baudelaire owed his success in that ridiculous trial to the understanding that he had with the housekeeper of one of the examiners. His stepfather, who had now become a Brigadier, conceived some grand ideas for the future of young Baudelaire. He was to attain to a high social position; he was to enter the Diplomatic service; and the Brigadier’s friendship with the Duke of Orleans was to pave the way to unknown greatness. But Charles would have none of it; he felt that his mission was to be a poet, and he meant to be one; rows followed, and the young poet threw himself into the literary life of Paris.
Amongst the first friends he there made were Balzac, Le Vavasseur, and Delatouche. In collaboration with Le Vavasseur he made his entry into the world of letters by the production of a literary gazette, boldly entitled the Corsair. Writing of him in after years, Le Vavasseur thus describes his appearance: “He was brown, of middle height, meager as an ascetic, well dressed, reserved: a libertine through curiosity, a pagan through revolt, tormenting his mind to mock his heart.”
His first meeting with the illustrious author of Pere Goriot was sufficiently interesting. He presented himself without introduction on one of the quays, stopping in front of Balzac and laughing as if he had known him for ten years. Balzac replied with such a smile as he might have bestowed on a long-lost friend, and after this they fell to chatting and talking until they became enchanted with one another. Poetry was not the only field which Baudelaire exploited at this time; he plunged into the strange waters of dandyism, and those who knew him recalled with a smile the elegance of his toilet and the nattiness of his appearance. All this flirtation with the muses, not to mention other ladies somewhat more dangerous, hardly gave satisfaction to Master Charles’ mother, so she thought it best to assert her authority and pack him off for a long sea voyage. He accordingly embarked without much demur on a sailing vessel bound for Calcutta. This voyage had a marked effect on his career; it contributed to the development of his artistic sensibility, and we see in his Flowers of Evil many traces of the impressions received from those far off countries, and the unknown skies and scenes contemplated during his voyage. He returned from his travels within a year, and shortly afterwards, having reached maturity, his patrimony was divided between himself and his only brother Claude. His own master, and with about £3,000 to fall back upon, he was free to live as he pleased. He betook himself to quiet lodgings, and gave himself up to the cultivation of friendship, of poetry, and of the arts. About this time he took to himself a mistress: she was a negress who figured as an attraction in small theatres and cafe chantants. She was, said Baudelaire to his friend Theophile Gautier, a reminiscence of his Eastern travels and amatory experiences. This woman became his favorite flame, and, though she deceived him vilely, he remained attached to her always with a strong affection. Baudelaire has himself described her:
“She comes to my lodgings, throws herself into an armchair near the fire. I treat her with much regard, and I am the only friend that she can pal up with. Here is her portrait. She is a Mulatto, not very black, not very beautiful, with black hair slightly crisped, grand figure, and of a bad walk.”
She was known by the name of Jeanne Duval, and was fond of a glass.
She had, without doubt, a baleful influence on him, through the constant cares of all sorts which she gave him and the incessant hindrances that she made in his regular work at a time when he was in the full vein of production.
After this period of incubation, his first production was a contribution not to literature, but to art. He had been always interested in art, and had been impressed by some schools, notably the Spanish, and had thrown himself ardently into the society of wielders of the brush. His essay was a criticism on the Salon of 1845. Literary criticism followed, and in 1846 he was in full career as an author. He produced in that year a novelette, The Young Enchanter, some further art and literary criticism and two humorous pieces, “A Selection of Consoling Maxims on Love” and “Counsels to Young Writers.” At the same time his first published verses appeared. These were “The Impenitent,” reprinted afterwards under the title of “Don Juan in Hell”, and “To an Indian Ladv.”
—from “Charles Baudelaire” by W.R. Credland as read at the Manchester Literary Club on December 6th, 1899. It is interesting to note the almost reverence for mystery surrounding critical writing about Baudelaire and his mistress, Jeanne Duval, as late as the turn of the century, decades after their deaths.