Prints and their makers: essays on engravers and etchers old and modern

by Unknown

This letter renders sufficiently clear the kind of service Baudelaire had rendered Meryon over and above the public praise contained in his writings. What, at the first glance, is less certain is the work on which the poet was engaged at this time and for which Meryon, on his own testimony, had promised to assist him with notes. In a foot-note to this letter, M. Jacques Crépet states that it was “doubtless L’eau-forte est à la mode, an anonymous article published by the Revue anecdotique in the latter half of April, 1862.” Personally, I doubt the correctness of this conjecture. One has but to turn to Baudelaire’s letters of the period to see that there was then under discussion another piece of work for which Meryon would have been much more likely to give assistance in the form of notes, since it directly concerned himself. Indeed, the matter almost amounted to a project of collaboration between Meryon and Baudelaire. The publisher Delâtre had promised to bring out an album of the “Vues de Paris,” and had asked the poet to prepare some text for the plates. The first reference to this tentative undertaking occurs in Baudelaire’s letter of February 16, 1860 (just a week before Meryon’s), to Poulet-Malassis:

“And then Meryon!”—he broaches the matter abruptly, after having expressed his impatience at the attitude of two other artists, Champfleury and Duranty, friends of his, toward Constantin Guys, and at a certain note of pedantry and dogmatism that was stealing into art under the influence and sanction of “realism”—“And then Meryon! Oh, as for him, it is intolerable. Delâtre asks me to write some text for the album. Good! there is an occasion to write some reveries—ten lines, twenty or thirty lines—on beautiful engravings, the philosophical reveries of a Parisian flaneur. But Meryon, whose idea is different, objects. I am to say: on the right you see this; on the left you see that. I must say: here originally there were twelve windows, reduced to six by the artist, and finally I must go to the Hôtel de Ville to find out the exact epoch of the demolitions. M. Meryon talks, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and without listening to any observation.”

Thus it was historical and antiquarian notes that, in all probability, Meryon had promised to jot down to facilitate the composition of a running commentary on the etchings. Meryon’s reference to the reluctance of the publisher in the very same paragraph in which he speaks of these notes, serves to remove the least doubt as to what is meant. When he tells Baudelaire not to be disturbed, it is clearly as to the time at his disposal for the preparation of his text. Baudelaire, however, seems to have been less concerned about his own share in the work than about the fate of the project as a whole. Evidently he was not satisfied at the prospects of the work with Delâtre, for, on March 9, 1860, he wrote in a postscript to Poulet-Malassis:

“I turn my letter, to ask you, very seriously, if it would not be advisable for you to be the publisher of Meryon’s album (which will be augmented) and for which I am to write the text. You know that, unfortunately, this text will not be in accordance with my wishes.

“I warn you that I have made overtures to the house of Gide....

“This Meryon does not know how to go about things; he knows nothing of life. He does not know how to sell; he does not know how to find a publisher. His work is readily salable.”

And again, on March 13, he writes, in response to some proposition from his friend:

“Relative to Meryon, do you mean by buying the plates to buy the metal plates, or rather the right of selling an indefinite number of proofs from them? I can conceive that you fear the conversations with Meryon. You should carry on the negotiations by letter (20, rue Duperré). I warn you that Meryon’s great fear is lest the publisher should change the format and the paper.... What you say to me of Meryon does not affect what I write to you concerning him.”

The excellent business sense, the note of prudence and painstaking, that comes out in all this correspondence on the part of Baudelaire, and which is scarcely less notable than his unwearied devotion to the interests of his friends, ought to go far toward discountenancing the theory that a poet cannot be a good man of affairs. Still again he writes on the same subject, with recapitulations of what he had said before, to the same correspondent:

“I am very much embarrassed, mon cher, to reply to you relatively to the Meryon affair. I have no rights in the matter whatsoever; M. Meryon has repulsed, with a species of horror, the idea of a text composed of a dozen little poems or sonnets; he has refused the idea of poetic meditations in prose. So as not to wound him, I have promised to write for him, in return for three copies with the good proofs, a text in the style of a guide or manual, unsigned. It is, therefore, with him alone that you will have to treat.... The thing has presented itself to my mind very simply. On one side, an unfortunate madman, who does not know how to conduct his affairs, and who has executed a beautiful work; on the other, you, on whose list I want to see the best books possible. As the journalists say, I have considered for you the double pleasure of a good bit of business and of a good act.” And he compares Meryon’s case with that of Daumier, then without a publisher, to wind whom up, “like a clock,” would also, he tells Poulet-Malassis, be “a great and good bit of business.”