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 45 of 118
My Heart Laid Bare · XLIV
French
p. 89Ce que je pense du vote et du droit d’élection. Des droits de l’homme.
Ce qu’il y a de vil dans une fonction quelconque.
Un Dandy ne fait rien. Vous figurez-vous un dandy parlant au peuple, excepté pour le bafouer ?
Il n’y a de gouvernement raisonnable et assuré que l’aristocratique.
Monarchie ou république, basées sur la démocratie, sont également absurdes et faibles.
Immense nausée des affiches.
Il n’existe que trois êtres respectables : le prêtre, le guerrier, le poète. Savoir, tuer et créer.
Les autres hommes sont taillables et corvéables, faits pour l’écurie, c’est-à-dire pour exercer ce qu’on appelle des professions.
Intimate Journals: My Heart Laid Bare
p. 90What I think of voting and the right to vote. Of the rights of man.
What is vile in any office.
A Dandy does nothing. Can you picture a dandy speaking to the people except to mock them?
No government is reasonable and secure except an aristocratic one.
Monarchy and republic, when based on democracy, are equally absurd and weak.
Immense nausea at the posters.
Only three beings are worthy of respect: the priest, the warrior, the poet. To know, to kill and to create.
All other men are subject to taxes and compulsory labour, made for the stable—that is, to practise what are called professions.
Socrates
Reading Intimate Journals · My Heart Laid Bare · My Heart Laid Bare · XLIV
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.