From the book
Intimate Journals
Charles Baudelaire · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe military metaphor makes literary activity resemble a campaign: writers hold flags, defend breaches, enter the fray, become veterans, and claim an advanced position.
- In Intimate JournalsMon cœur mis à nu LXI–LXIII23 build a small dossier rather than a single maxim.
- In this edition‘Stay at the breach’ retains the siege image rather than replacing it with a bland expression of perseverance.
- A place to readToute métaphore ici porte des moustaches.
Meaning
The military metaphor makes literary activity resemble a campaign: writers hold flags, defend breaches, enter the fray, become veterans, and claim an advanced position. Baudelaire's objection is not simply that these expressions are figurative. It is that the claim to independent combat can hide obedience to a collective formation.
The moustache is the diagnostic joke. By making every metaphor wear one, Mon cœur mis à nu LXI exposes a supposedly heroic vocabulary as a repeated costume.
Use in the book
Mon cœur mis à nu LXI–LXIII23 build a small dossier rather than a single maxim. Examples accumulate before the judgment arrives: such minds are made for discipline, conformity, and domestic service. The phrase ‘avant-garde writers’ is included among the incriminating habits. It should not be read here as Baudelaire's endorsement of an artistic movement bearing that later or broader label.
The national insult ‘Belgian minds’ reiterates Mon cœur mis à nu XXXVII's attack on people who can think only in groups. The polemic's general argument concerns dependence; the nationality is an abusive generalization, not evidence. The self-styled combatant turns out to need an army.
Yet the notebook honours the warrior in Mon cœur mis à nu XLIV and LXX2, imagines a military pope in childhood, and likens evening prayer to a captain posting sentries in Mon cœur mis à nu CXVI. These uses show why a ban on all martial imagery would misread the dossier. He rejects the automatic rhetoric of collective literary prestige while retaining particular images of force, vigilance, and sacrifice.
Places to read
- Mon cœur mis à nu LXIToute métaphore ici porte des moustaches. — Personification exposes the uniformity of the rhetoric.
- Mon cœur mis à nu LXIIILes littérateurs d’avant-garde. — The familiar label is one of the satirical exhibits.
- Mon cœur mis à nu LXIIIfaits pour la discipline, c’est-à-dire pour la conformité — The promised combat is redescribed as obedience.
- Mon cœur mis à nu CXVIun capitaine qui pose des sentinelles. — The late prayer note uses a military figure affirmatively.
Translation in this edition
‘Stay at the breach’ retains the siege image rather than replacing it with a bland expression of perseverance. ‘Militant’ is kept in its combative sense, so Mon cœur mis à nu LXIII's explicit negation can answer the earlier examples. Note 6023 appropriately leaves the surname Bertin unresolved; identifying a specific newspaper or person would falsely complete a shorthand reminder.