With Baudelaire in Brussels, #07
The poet and his guest discuss omelettes and air travel.
To mark the 160th anniversary of Georges Barral’s trip to Brussels and his five-day visit with the poet Charles Baudelaire, I am publishing my translation of the first four days from his memoir on Substack. You can find the previous instalments here.
At that moment Mr. Lepage, the owner of the hotel, appears. He has come up to greet us. He is attentive to his guest’s every need, for he knows his literary reputation. And besides, Baudelaire is a pleasant customer. He lives quietly, alone, and makes no demands — his manner is polished, even aristocratic. He spends about 200 francs a month and, up to this point, he has paid fairly regularly. Baudelaire is only at the beginning of his stay. Soon things will change, worsening in every way due to sickness, weariness, and lack of money. In a few weeks he will have an ambivalent relationship with Mrs. Lepage. She is from Picardy and is a small, sour, cantankerous woman. She looks after the books, and does not offer extended credit.
Acting on the advice of Joseph Stevens, the animal painter, Baudelaire turned up at the very middle-class Hôtel du Grand Miroir in the afternoon of April 16, 1864. The town has already left an unpleasant taste in his mouth, and before it is over he will drink the bitter cup to the dregs. Brussels at this point in time is a provincial Sahara. Baudelaire is profoundly bored, and seizes every opportunity to connect with French people who are passing through. He immortalized the Hôtel du Grand Miroir by his stay, but it was a purgatory for him. Nonetheless, they were full of concern for him when he fell gravely ill on Saturday, March 31, 1867. It was here that he was diligently cared for by the young doctor Oscar Max, the hotel’s house physician.
We sit down at the table, seated across from one another. They bring the omelette. It is splendid, sweet smelling, bulging, and a tawny brown colour. Baudelaire tells me that the Belgians do not understand anything about omelettes. Their version is flat, unfolded, hardly beaten, without seasoning, and, by consequence, drab and indigestible.
“This is a Condorcet omelette, which is to say it contains ten eggs. It is an opulent omelette that I have ordered in light of your young appetite. May we do it proud. Let us open the belly of this négresse.”
And with this, Baudelaire cuts into the steaming mass and serves me a copious portion with a generous and authoritative gesture. Then, out of the blue, almost immediately, and with his mouth full, he engages me in discussion.
“He is always marvellous and contradictory, that Nadar!” shouts Baudelaire. “He claims the balloon is a stupid vehicle, that it can not be directed, and then publicizes it all over the damned place. Instead of using it, why doesn’t he come out and openly ask for the help of his noble friend, Viscount d’Amécourt, and his helicopter? Or use the aeroplane designed by the engineer Pline, the third by that name?”
I remain a little taken aback. After a pause, I brush the crumbs away with my napkin and reply:
“It is quite simple, Mr. Baudelaire, and very logical. Nadar, my employer Nadar, used to believe, like many others, that it was possible to find a way to steer balloons. After a series of detailed studies, experiments, and numerous ascensions since 1849, he came to a different conclusion. He was persuaded that he was on the wrong track. One may not be able to steer, but one can direct the aerostats by changing their round or pear-shaped form. The problem needed to be reworded. He was convinced that in order to move in the atmosphere, it was necessary to be heavier, stronger than air. Firm in this belief, he wrote a short treatise wittily titled Le droit au vol, which was immediately translated into several languages. The English translator, Mr. Harry, was unable to reproduce the French pun and called it The Right to Fly.”1
“Most of our plays on words cannot be translated into English,” interrupts Baudelaire, who knew Shakespeare’s language very well.
“Without pausing, striking while the iron was still hot, Nadar founded the Society for Aerial Automotion the following month. He also launched L’Aéronaute, a magazine that serves as the group’s official organ. Nadar does not do anything by half measures! In a few weeks, he had organized all of this in his immense photographic studio. He knew how to find well placed patrons. Even the Emperor was agreeable, and offered him significant financial assistance. But Nadar, who is a fierce republican from ‘48, would not have anything to do with it. He preferred Hugo’s five hundred francs.”
Here, Baudelaire’s face showed a hint of surprise. “The fool!” he murmured. I did not stop, and continued my account. As a matter of fact, my host seemed keenly interested, for he fixed his intent gaze on me and remained silent.
“We work resolutely. Each week on Friday night we gather together in Nadar’s largest room, which he has transformed into a study hall. There is a long, black table, numerous chairs, and bright lighting. We are at number 35, boulevard des Capucines, in the midst of lively Paris. (“And high liver!” adds Baudelaire). Everyone brings his own ideas, submits his calculations, his projects, and his inventions. We are full of faith, enthusiasm, and devoid of self interest. However there are costs, quite a few costs in fact, for it is expensive to construct and test these devices. Since we are not rich, and since Nadar stubbornly refuses to accept help from official channels, we must find money. And that’s the reasoning behind the Géant’s profitable ascensions. But, Mr. Baudelaire, I am boring you with details ... ”
“Not at all, not at all! This is all very interesting, chivalrous even! Still, is it not a tactical error to heap scorn on the balloon, which has a long record of service behind it, and is indispensable for staying in the air?”
I fidget and promptly reply, “Not in the least, Mr. Baudelaire. The balloon is the enemy. The balloon is the obstacle that prevents the problem of aerial automotion from being solved!”
“Automotion! Why this neologism?”, interrupts Baudelaire. “Why not aerial navigation?”
“The word automotion is an excellent one, preferable to others because it generalizes the future discovery of the flying machine, without being precise about the specific method, which remains uncertain. Will it have the form of a boat? A house? A bird? Or will it have an entirely different appearance? We do not know. We are in a period of trial and error. The Icarian man, that is to say the flying man with wings attached to his arms, is a unrealizable, mythological dream. It contradicts the laws of mechanics. We will waste our time looking in that direction. The bird-men will always come to the same tragic end as Daedalus’ unfortunate son. You yourself proclaimed it in your poem Les Plaintes d’un Icare [The Lamentations of an Icarus]:2
In vain I had wanted to try
To find space’s middle and end;
Beneath some unknown fiery eye
I feel my wing break and descend.If you would like to support me as I ferry neglected artists and authors into English and back into print, I welcome small, one-off donations via PayPal.
Le droit au vol could be read as either “the right to fly” or “the right to steal”.
My translation of the stanza.
Having tinkered with translation from French to English, I have to give you kudos on the bit about "droit au vol." Flows very well.