From the book
Intimate Journals
Charles Baudelaire · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe jeune fille of Mon cœur mis à nu LXXXIII first appears as the young girl ‘of’ publishers and editors: an imagined reader used to police what art may show.
- In Intimate JournalsMon cœur mis à nu LXXXIII calls the figure a murderer of art.
- In this edition‘Little slut’ retains the offensive force of salope beside ‘depravity’; it does not identify the imagined girl as a professional prostitute.
- A place to readLa jeune fille des éditeurs.
Meaning
The jeune fille of Mon cœur mis à nu LXXXIII first appears as the young girl ‘of’ publishers and editors: an imagined reader used to police what art may show. Calling her a scarecrow makes the protective figure an instrument of intimidation. The passage then turns that criticism into misogynistic abuse of young women themselves.
These two objects must be distinguished. An argument against a censor's idealized audience does not substantiate the ensuing claims about actual girls' intelligence or sexuality.
Use in the book
Mon cœur mis à nu LXXXIII calls the figure a murderer of art. Its compressed sequence suggests that the supposed innocence of a reader can be used to justify suppressing artistic knowledge. Yet the attack does not remain directed at publishers. By asserting depravity as the young girl's reality, Baudelaire reproduces the reductive typemaking he is exposing.
Mon cœur mis à nu CVI stages a parallel scandal at the Louvre: Louise Villedieu, described by Baudelaire through the price of prostitution, blushes at immortal paintings and sculpture. He uses the anecdote against bourgeois moral commentary, treating expressed modesty as a poor judge of art. The woman's reaction is reported only through his narration; it does not establish either her hypocrisy or a reliable biographical portrait.
The fig-leaf reminder extends the dispute into museum display, but names no particular work or order. Mon cœur mis à nu XC's attack on Tartuffe complicates any simple defence of unlimited public exposure: Baudelaire himself says serious questions should not be handed to the rabble. He opposes certain censoring audiences while imagining restrictions of his own. Artistic autonomy here remains entangled with hierarchy.
Places to read
- Mon cœur mis à nu LXXXIIILa jeune fille des éditeurs. — The initial figure belongs to the publishers’ apparatus.
- Mon cœur mis à nu LXXXIIIassassin de l’art. — Protection of an audience is framed as destruction of art.
- Mon cœur mis à nu CVIcomment on pouvait étaler publiquement de pareilles indécences. — The Louvre anecdote turns modesty into an aesthetic problem.
- Mon cœur mis à nu XCcertaines questions graves à la canaille. — Baudelaire also imposes a restriction of audience.
Translation in this edition
‘Little slut’ retains the offensive force of salope beside ‘depravity’; it does not identify the imagined girl as a professional prostitute. ‘Fig leaves’ translates feuilles de vigne idiomatically in the context of covering nudity. Notes 76, 82, and 94234 distinguish the polemical judgments from verifiable facts about Molière and the museum administrator Nieuwerkerke.