Charles Baudelaire - Announcement Of Death. 1867 - Félicité Baudelaire

Rarissime death announcement for Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) from the collection of souvenirs of Félicité Baudelaire (1812-1902).

[Paris], Imprimerie Collet, [August 31] 1867. One page in-4 of lithographed text edged in black. Very good condition. Minor restoration to spine (slight reinforcement of a fold, invisible). Size; 27 x 21 cm (with frame 37 x 31.5 cm.)

Rare and precious document doubled here by an exceptional family and intimate provenance. This large announcement is reproduced in the Pléiade's Baudelaire album (p. 171), in the biography by C. Pichois and J. Ziegler (p. 594) and in the Baudelaire Dictionary by C. Pichois and J.-P. Avice (p. 339.

Baudelaire died on Saturday August 31, 1867, in a suffocating late summer while the Paris Universal Exhibition was in full swing on the Champ-de-Mars. The funeral took place very quickly, on Monday September 2. Only a small number of people received the obituary notice sent on Sunday. "Many people didn't get them until the next day, when they came back from the countryside", Charles Asselineau would specify a few weeks later in a letter to Poulet-Malassis.

The mention "muni des sacrements de l'Église" (provided with the sacraments of the Church) would cause much ink to flow, but would not surprise his closest friends. Baudelaire was no atheist, and while he despised many aspects of religion, he did not conceive of the world without transcendence.

"You are requested to attend the convoy, service and burial of Monsieur Charles Pierre Baudelaire, who died in Paris on August 31, 1867, at the age of forty-six, provided with the sacraments of the Church;

which will take place on Monday, September 2 next, at the church of Saint-Honoré, his parish, place de l'Hippodrome, at 11 a.m. sharp.

We will meet at the church.

De profundis!"

From Madame Vve Aupick, his mother, Mme Perrée, his great' aunt and children, Mme Vve Baudelaire, his sister-in-law, Mr Jean Levaillant, brigadier general, Mr Jean-Jacques Levaillant, battalion chief, Mr Charles Levaillant, division general, his cousins."

This exceptional document is protected by a 37 x 31.5 cm frame (decropping on request) in carved wood with anti-uv and anti-reflective glass.

About Félicité Baudelaire:

"Anne-Félicité Baudelaire, née Ducessois, had married Baudelaire's half-brother Alphonse in April 1829. Baudelaire fell in love with her at an early age. In 1846, at the age of 25, the poet set about courting his sister-in-law, sending her his Choix de maximes consolantes sur l'amour with a half-heartedly gallant letter, in which he presents himself as "a supporter of Antony's love", in other words, of adultery, and invites his half-brother's wife to "be [his] providence in the career offered to [him] through the channel of love..." (Corr., I, 134- 135). For Claude Pichois, this was a "gently perverse game", even an "ironic revenge", designed to embarrass him and provoke his half-brother, who had approved his placement under guardianship. Whether Baudelaire was in love with Félicité or not, he made her his muse, since she inspired a small "cycle" of three poems, recently studied by Andrea Schellino - and is also said to have served as a model for the character of Mme de Cosmelly in the short story La Fanfarlo, published in 1847. After Alphonse's death in 1862, Félicité renewed her relationship with Caroline Aupick, who had moved to Honfleur. It was she who kept Charles Asselineau informed of Baudelaire's mother's health and death in the summer of 1871. She inherited part of Madame Aupick's estate in 1871, and in particular some of Charles's intimate documents and letters from his youth, which were kept in her family after his death in 1902." (Source: Alde, notes about "Souvenirs provenant de Félicité Baudelaire")