_Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve_
_Thursday_, 30_th 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_ 4_th 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.
Decidedly, I congratulate you with all my heart. You are now the equal
(officially) of many mediocre people. That matters little. You wished
it, did you not? need, perhaps? You are content, then I am happy.
Yours always.
_Baudelaire to Sainte-Beuve_
11_th July_, 1865.
Very dear friend, I could not cross Paris without coming to shake you
by the hand. Very soon, probably in a month.
I saw J. L... three days ago, when I was making for Honfleur. L.
pretended that he was going to undertake some important business for
me with MM. G.... If you could intervene in my favour with one or two
authoritative words, you would make me happy. You do not wish my
awkward compliments on the subject of the Senate, do you?
Your very devoted friend.
I start again for the infernal regions to-morrow evening. Till then, I
am at the Hôtel du chemin de fer du Nord. Place de Nord.