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My Heart Laid Bare

On the vaporization and centralization of the Self. Everything lies in that.

On a certain sensual pleasure in the company of eccentrics.

(I think I shall begin My Heart Laid Bare anywhere, in any way, and carry it on day by day, following the inspiration of the day and the occasion, provided the inspiration is intense.)

Anyone who comes along, provided he knows how to entertain, has the right to speak about himself.

I understand deserting one cause to find out what one will feel in serving another.

It might perhaps be sweet to be, by turns, victim and executioner.

Girardin’s absurdities:

“Our habit is to take the bull by the horns. So let us take the speech by its end.”

(7 November 1863

So Girardin believes that bulls’ horns are planted on their backsides. He confuses the horns with the tail.

“Before imitating the Ptolemies of French journalism, let Belgian journalists take the trouble to reflect on the question I have studied for thirty years in all its aspects, as the volume that will shortly appear under the title Press Questions will prove; let them not hasten to call supremely ridiculous (1) an opinion as true as it is true that the earth turns and the sun does not.”

EMILE DE GIRARDIN

(1) There are people who claim that nothing prevents one from believing that, while the heavens remain motionless, it is the earth that turns on its axis. But these people fail to see, in view of what happens around us, how supremely ridiculous their opinion is (πάνυ γελοιότατον).

PTOLEMY (The Almagest, Book I, Chapter VI.)

Et habet mea mentrita mentum.

GIRARDIN.

Woman is the opposite of the Dandy. Therefore she must inspire horror.

Woman is hungry, and she wants to eat; thirsty, and she wants to drink.

She is in heat, and she wants to be ⟨fucked⟩.

What a fine accomplishment!

Woman is natural, that is to say, abominable.

Thus she is always vulgar, that is to say, the opposite of the Dandy.

Concerning the Legion of Honour. — Anyone who asks for the cross seems to be saying: If I am not decorated for having done my duty, I shall not do it again.

If a man has merit, what is the point of decorating him? If he has none, one may decorate him, because [that] will give him lustre.

To consent to being decorated is to acknowledge the State’s or the prince’s right to judge you, to confer distinction upon you, et cetera.

Besides, if pride does not forbid the cross, Christian humility does.

A calculation in God’s favour. — Nothing exists without a purpose.

So my existence has a purpose.

What purpose? I do not know.

So it was not I who assigned it. It was therefore someone who knows more than I do.

So I must pray to that someone to enlighten me. It is the wisest course.

The Dandy must aspire to be sublime, without interruption. He must live and sleep before a mirror.

Analysis of counter-religions: for example, sacred prostitution.

What is sacred prostitution?

Stimulation of the nerves.

The mystical quality of paganism. Mysticism, the link between paganism and Christianity.

Paganism and Christianity prove one another.

The Revolution and the cult of Reason prove the idea of sacrifice.

Superstition is the reservoir of all truths.

There is in every change something at once shameful and pleasant, something that partakes of infidelity and of moving house. That is enough to explain the French Revolution.

My intoxication in 1848.

What was the nature of that intoxication? A taste for vengeance. The natural pleasure of demolition. Literary intoxication; recollections of reading.

15 May. Still the taste for destruction. A legitimate taste, if everything natural is legitimate.

The horrors of June. The madness of the people and the madness of the bourgeoisie. Natural love of crime.

My fury at the coup d’état. How much rifle fire I came under! Another Bonaparte! What a disgrace!

And yet everything has calmed down. Does the President not have a right he can invoke?

What Emperor Napoleon III is. What he is worth. Find the explanation of his nature, and his providential character.

Being a useful man has always struck me as something quite hideous.

1848 was amusing only because everyone was devising utopias as one builds castles in the air.

The only charm of 1848 lay in its sheer excess of the ridiculous.

Robespierre is worthy of esteem only because he produced a few fine phrases.

The Revolution, through sacrifice, confirms Superstition.

Politics.—I have no convictions, as the people of my century understand them, because I have no ambition.

There is no foundation in me for a conviction.

There is a certain cowardice, or rather a certain softness, in respectable people.

Only brigands are convinced—of what?—that they must succeed. And so they succeed.

Why would I succeed, since I do not even feel like trying?

One can found glorious empires on crime, and noble religions on imposture.

Yet I have some convictions, in a higher sense, one that cannot be understood by the people of my time.

A sense of solitude, from my childhood. Despite the family, and above all amid companions—a sense of an eternally solitary destiny.

Yet a very keen taste for life and pleasure.

T8.Vaporization and centralizationVaporisation and centralisation are retained as the paired images of the Self dispersing and gathering itself. Moi remains capitalized and italicized, as does its English equivalent Self. Extravagants here means people whose conduct or character is eccentric; it is rendered as eccentrics.

T9.Je penseThe 1920 printed source reads Je pense commencer, while the comparison Gutenberg text reads Je peux commencer. This version follows the print: I think I shall begin. The variation affects intention and possibility and is not silently harmonized.

T10.Victim and executionerBourreau is rendered as executioner, preserving the violence of its literal sense. The word can also describe a tormentor; the French fragment does not specify a setting.

T11.Girardin and the source noteThe source juxtaposes Girardin’s assertion that the earth turns with a passage attributed to Ptolemy calling that view souverainement ridicule, here supremely ridiculous. The French Ptolemy passage, the Greek phrase, and the two attributions form the printed source note marked (1); they are distinguished from the present translator’s notes. The closing parenthesis is missing from the printed date (7 novembre 1863 and is retained as missing in both columns.Ptolemy in Halma’s historical French edition

T12.Uncertain LatinThe source prints Et habet mea mentrita mentum. beneath the Ptolemy passage and attributes it to Girardin. The comparison Gutenberg text has meatum for the final word; this version follows the printed mentum. The sequence, especially mentrita, cannot be confidently construed as printed and is reproduced unchanged in the English column. No conjectural correction or unsupported English meaning is supplied.

T13.An abbreviated obscenityThe 1920 print gives Elle est en rut, et elle veut être f.... The French column retains its f...; the English supplies ⟨fucked⟩ from the uncensored foutue in the comparison Gutenberg text. Angle brackets mark this editorial restoration. En rut is rendered as in heat, retaining the animalizing language.Comparison French transcription

T14.The decoration and the bracketed wordThe cross in the Légion d’Honneur passage is the decoration being discussed. Illustrer means to confer distinction or make illustrious. The square brackets around [cela] belong to the printed French source and are carried into English as [that]. Dandy remains capitalized throughout, following the print.

T20.Counter-religions and mysticismContre-religions remains counter-religions, an exploratory label. Excitation nerveuse is stimulation of the nerves. Mysticité becomes mystical quality, distinguished from mysticisme, mysticism. The print omits se in prouvent réciproquement; prove one another makes its elliptical reciprocal sense clear. Sacred prostitution is posed as a question here, without identifying a particular ancient institution.

T21.The cult of Reason and sacrificeThe cult of Reason refers to revolutionary ceremonies of 1793. The Convention’s record of 10 November describes a celebration at the Temple of Reason in Paris and invokes a new sacrifice. This gives historical context for Baudelaire’s comparison, without establishing that he read that record. Superstition is lowercase in XXVIII and capitalized in XXXII, as in the print.Archives parlementaires, ceremony at the Temple of Reason, 10 November 1793

T22.Moving house and castles in the airDéménagement retains its concrete meaning, moving house, beside infidelity. Châteaux en Espagne is rendered by the English idiom castles in the air: imagined or unrealizable projects. Ridicule is lowercase in the 1920 print, unlike the comparison Gutenberg text.Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, château, ninth edition

T23.1848 and the coup d’étatIn this section’s 1848 context, 15 May refers to the invasion of the National Assembly by demonstrators; June refers to the June Days of 23–26 June after the closure of the National Workshops. The subsequent coup d’état is that of 2 December 1851, led by President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who became Emperor Napoleon III in December 1852.Assemblée nationale, institutional-history evidence to the working group on institutions, 14 November 2014 · BnF RetroNews, Juin 1848: la révolte du peuple de Paris · Élysée, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte

T24.Intoxication, rifle fire, and ProvidenceIvresse retains the metaphor intoxication; literary intoxication makes the figurative register clear. Essuyer des coups de fusil means to come under rifle fire, without necessarily being wounded. Un droit à invoquer is a right or claim that can be appealed to. Providentialité becomes providential character, preserving the reference to Providence rather than reducing it to good fortune.Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, coup, ninth edition