Upon his return to Paris, Charles Baudelaire also received his inheritance, a handsome 75,000 francs, which he was demanding after achieving adulthood. In 1841, Charles Baudelaire set sail on his ‘imposed’ adventure only to return within ten months. His mother and stepfather stepped in a couple years later and offered him a trip to India with the hope that the young “rebel” would adjudicate his ways. – Charles Baudelaire, “De l’héroïsme de la vie moderne,” Salon de 1846, XVIII (1846) The Poet-in-Waiting “All beauties, like all possible phenomena, have something of the eternal and something of the ephemeral - of the absolute and the particular.” It is also believed that he contracted syphilis around this time. Thus, he spent the next two years in Paris’ Latin Quarter accumulating debt. Upon obtaining his degree in 1839, Baudelaire chose not to pursue law any further, but turned to a career in literature. Dissatisfied with his choice of profession, he began to drink daily, hire prostitutes and run up considerable debts.

In 1833, the family moved to Lyons where Baudelaire studied law at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. In 1827, Caroline married Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Aupick, who later became a prominent ambassador. Baudelaire’s father, who was thirty years older than his mother, died when the poet was six. – Charles Baudelaire, “Quelques mots d’introduction,” Salon de 1845 (May 1845) Early YearsĬharles Baudelaire was born in Paris, France, to his father François Baudelaire, a senior civil servant and amateur artist, and his wife, Caroline. To scorn the mobs of those who go astray is not the means to bring them around.” “Everything that gives pleasure has its reason. His themes of sex, death, lesbianism, metamorphosis, depression, urban corruption, lost innocence and alcohol not only gained him loyal followers, but has ever since become a subject of controversy. Baudelaire is considered one of the major innovators in French literature. Baudelaire is most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal ( The Flowers of Evil), expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the 19th century. He produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. On April 9, 1821, French poet Charles Baudelaire was born.

The flowers of evil charles baudelaire