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 21 of 118
Flares · XX
French
p. 41Fusées. — Un peu de travail, répété trois cent soixante-cinq fois, donne trois cent soixante-cinq fois un peu d’argent, c’est-à-dire une somme énorme. En même temps, la gloire est faite.
[En marge.] De même, une foule de petites jouissances composent le bonheur.
Créer un poncif, c’est le génie. Je dois créer un poncif.
— Le concetto est un chef-d’œuvre.
— Le ton Alphonse Rabbe.
— Le ton fille entretenue (Ma toute belle ! Sexe volage !).
— Le ton éternel.
Coloriage cru, dessin profondément retaillé.
La prima dona et le garçon boucher.
Ma mère est fantastique ; il faut la craindre et lui plaire.
L’orgueilleux Hildebrand.
Césarisme de Napoléon III. (Lettre à Edgar Ney.) Pape et Empereur.
Intimate Journals: Flares
p. 42Flares. — A little work, repeated three hundred and sixty-five times, yields three hundred and sixty-five times a little money, that is, an enormous sum. At the same time, fame is achieved.
[In the margin.] So too, a multitude of small pleasures make up happiness.
To create a cliché is genius. I must create a cliché.
— The concetto is a masterpiece.
— The Alphonse Rabbe tone.
— The kept-woman tone (My lovely one! Fickle sex!).
— The eternal tone.
Raw colouring, drawing deeply recut.
The prima donna and the butcher’s boy.
My mother is capricious; she must be feared and pleased.
Proud Hildebrand.
Napoleon III’s Caesarism. (Letter to Edgar Ney.) Pope and Emperor.
Socrates
Reading Intimate Journals · Flares · Flares · XX
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.