Influential French writer (1821-1867) best known for his highly imaginative and experimental verse, including the seminal 1857 collection Les Fleurs du Mal. ALS in French, signed “Charles,” four pages on two adjoining sheets, 5.25 x 8, March 3, 1858. Long letter about his financial trouble and his grudge against Narcisse Ancelle, the lawyer in charge of managing Baudelaire's inheritance. Baudelaire hopes he will only have to negotiate with M. Jaquotot, his mother's lawyer. He finds M. Ancelle’s methods deplorable and disloyal, whereas he is very satisfied with M. Jaquotot who has stayed completely calm and with whom he has analyzed his debts and the ways to deal with them. He expects to soon get the 3000 Francs that his mother has promised him and that are probably withheld by M. Ancelle, and he hopes to join her soon in Honfleur. In part (translated): "I feared that this conference was a trap for bringing about an enforced reconciliation…Mr. Jaquotot began to reproach me very strongly for my violence, and then asked me what my grievances were. I first spoke of the remoteness of that accursed Neuilly, of the numerous occupations of Ancelle which never allowed him to do just and in time what was to be done, of his deplorable habits of mind, of his lightness, its stupidity, and finally all its little disloyalty, which had the result not only of harming me, but also of exasperating me…All this is very delicate, it is to please you, and also because of the desire that I have to go, that I wait coldly, because a grudge that is not at all calmed me to rush things, at the risk of sacrificing everything, considering an absolute break as the happiest thing that can happen to me. But you do not think so; I do not know why, and I submit, that is, I will not provoke this rupture. You accuse me of accusing you. It's absurd. How can I accuse you at the moment when you render me an immense service, at the moment when I must be full of gratitude, at the moment when you offer me a shelter? Only I deplore a way of seeing that has greatly harmed me, I regret that you hid some things from me, that you went too quickly and without warning me…Now, to the grace of God!—What fatigue for such simple things! I am very tired and I would like to work well." In fine condition. Accompanied by an export certificate from the French Ministry of Culture, as well as a letter from Antoine Jaquotot to Mme. Aupick [Baudelaire's mother], in which he confirms the encounter with Baudelaire and accepts to serve as an intermediary should Mme. Aupick desire it.
In 1827, Baudelaire's widowed mother married Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Aupick, which strained their relationship for years to come. A chief point of contention was Baudelaire's extravagant spending, and in 1844 the family had a court appoint Narcisse Ancelle as a legal advisor to oversee the young man's funds. Trailed by his creditors in February 1858, Baudelaire had trouble bearing the investigation conducted by Ancelle, when the lawyer came to his apartment to interrogate the proprietor about Baudelaire’s mores and habits. Enraged, the poet had threatened to slap the notary in the face in front of his wife and children. Gradually, he calmed down, decided against going to Honfleur, and instead traveled to Corbeil in order to check on the printing process of his translation of Edgar Allan Poe’s novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.
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