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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Facing Pages · Branch 108 of 118
My Heart Laid Bare · CVII
French
p. 215Pour que la loi du progrès existât, il faudrait que chacun voulût la créer ; c’est-à-dire que, quand tous les individus s’appliqueront à progresser, alors, l’humanité sera en progrès.-
Cette hypothèse peut servir à expliquer l’identité des deux idées contradictoires, liberté et fatalité, — Non seulement il y aura, dans le cas de progrès, identité entre la liberté et la fatalité, mais cette identité a toujours existé. Cette identité c’est l’histoire, histoire des nations et des individus.
Intimate Journals: My Heart Laid Bare
p. 216For the law of progress to exist, each person would have to want to create it; that is to say that, when all individuals apply themselves to making progress, then humanity will be progressing.
This hypothesis may serve to explain the identity of the two contradictory ideas, freedom and fate. — Not only will there be, in the case of progress, identity between freedom and fate, but this identity has always existed. This identity is history, the history of nations and individuals.
Socrates
Reading Intimate Journals · My Heart Laid Bare · My Heart Laid Bare · CVII
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.