Diotimos Library · Journals, Notebooks & Fragments Collection · Bilingual Edition
Intimate Journals
Flares and My Heart Laid Bare · French with an independent English translation.
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French Page · Branch 81 of 118
My Heart Laid Bare · Mon cœur mis à nu · LXXX
French
p. 161Saint-Marc Girardin a dit un mot qui restera : « Soyons médiocres ! »
Rapprochons ce mot de celui de Robespierre : « Ceux qui ne croient pas à l’immortalité de leur être se rendent justice. »
Le mot de Saint-Marc Girardin implique une immense haine contre le sublime.
Qui a vu Saint-Marc Girardin marcher dans la rue a conçu tout de suite l’idée d’une grande oie infatuée d’elle-même, mais effarée et courant sur la grande route, devant la diligence.
Intimate Journals: My Heart Laid Bare
p. 162Saint-Marc Girardin has made a remark that will endure: ‘Let us be mediocre!’
Let us set this remark beside Robespierre’s: ‘Those who do not believe in the immortality of their being pass a just judgment on themselves.’
Saint-Marc Girardin’s remark implies an immense hatred of the sublime.
Anyone who has seen Saint-Marc Girardin walking in the street has immediately conceived the image of a large goose, infatuated with itself, but terrified and running along the highway ahead of the stagecoach.
Socrates
Reading Intimate Journals · My Heart Laid Bare · My Heart Laid Bare · LXXX
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Charles Baudelaire’s private fragments turn from art, love, and crowds to prayer, anger, work, and the discipline of writing. This complete bilingual edition presents all 117 sections of Flares and My Heart Laid Bare, including Hygiène, with an introduction and 104 explanatory notes.
Historical Text and Translation
The French follows Adolphe van Bever’s 1920 edition of Journaux intimes, printed pages 3–42 and 45–112. Its 117 Roman-numbered sections contain the complete Fusées and Mon cœur mis à nu, including Hygiène. These fragments were arranged after Baudelaire’s death; their printed sequence preserves that edition’s organization of loose sheets. The separate selection of maxims on love and the editor’s backmatter are outside this volume.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this independent English translation directly from the French. Flares and My Heart Laid Bare retain the fragments’ abrupt turns, repetitions, images, and unfinished projects. French and English paragraphs remain paired, with verse, italics, and printed annotations preserved. The introduction places the notebooks in context; translator’s notes clarify references, ambiguities, and uncertain readings. All 104 notes meet the reader’s Essential criterion and remain available beside their passages.
Rights
Baudelaire’s historical French text and the 1920 printing are in the public domain in the United States. The independent English translation, introduction, and new editorial notes are © 2026 Diotimos Editions. The linked facsimile and catalogue identify the printed source, while a historical transcription supplies a comparison witness. Original annotations retain their attribution, and source references distinguish the printed arrangement from the surviving manuscript sheets.