Charles BAUDELAIRE gives news of DELACROIX and GAUTIER.

Charles Baudelaire (1821.1867)

Autograph letter signed “CB” to its publisher Auguste Poulet-Malassis.

Two pages in-8° addressed to the Madelonnettes remand center.

Slight loss (without affecting the text) on the 4th sheet due to the opening of the stamp.

Autograph address, postal mark, trace of red wax stamp.

Correspondence. Pleiades. Volume II, page 246.

[Paris] January 6, 1863.

“Mr. Delacroix would take over the management of the Museums. »

Beautiful letter from the poet giving news of the artistic and literary life, of Delacroix, Gautier, and Barbey d'Aurevilly, to his publisher imprisoned in Paris.

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“My dear Auguste, I am writing to you from our friend [Charles Asselineau], with whom I had dinner and whose leg is already better. He hopes to come out at the end of the week and ask permission to see you. – As for your famous gift, he thinks like me and much more than me, that it is completely absurd. – I cannot receive anything like that.

– You still want news: – It is claimed that Gautier is going to leave Le Moniteur and receive positions in the Beaux-Arts. Mr. de Nieuwerkerke ^* would go to the Senate, and Mr. Delacroix would take charge of the Museums. It was also said that Monselet was to inherit from Gautier for the theaters and a M. Chesneau ^** from the same Gautier for the Fine Arts part. Finally, to add to the absurdity, F. Desnoyers claimed to inherit d'Aurevilly in the country . But his friend Ulysse Pic, who became director of Le Pays , did not believe he could dare to do this. All yours. CB »

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Auguste Poulet-Malassis spent multiple stays in prison, particularly for his opposition to the Second Empire. In 1862, his financial negligence and the bankruptcy of his publishing house landed him behind bars again. He went into exile in Brussels in September 1863 where he clandestinely published prohibited texts.

^* Count de Nieuwerkerke was then the general director of the Imperial Museums. He will be named general superintendent of Fine Arts on the following June 29, and senator in 1864. Gautier, for his part, will remain at the Moniteur. Delacroix died a few months later, in August 1863.

^** Ernest Chesneau, protégé and confidant of Nieuwerkerke, runs the artistic series at the Constitutionnel.