Caroline Aupick, Baudelaire’s mother, who was born in 1793 and died in 1871, lived in a century which exalted motherhood and confined women in a straitjacket of irresponsibility. A review of her education, her youth as a destitute orphan doomed to hold no status in society, and the various stages of her chaotic destiny, allow readers to better grasp her difficult role as mother to a suffering genius.All of his life, Baudelaire loved his mother intensely. Although the tender and trusting feelings he had for her in his childhood soon gave way to an adulthood of rebellion and marginalisation, he always made Mrs. Aupick the neurotic centre of his emotional life. Plagued by solitude, poverty, and physical and psychic sufferings, his dreams of tranquillity, prosperity, love and security were anchored in his mother’s image.Mrs. Aupick, whose second husband was a general and later an ambassador and senator, and who placed her son in the care of a guardian, embodied the values of a bourgeoisie with which Baudelaire had severed all ties. As both his enemy and friend, his aggressor and saviour, she reflected the ambivalence, complexity and contradictions which can be seen in Baudelaire’s writings.As a child, Baudelaire was imprinted with the femininity radiated by Caroline Aupick, who thus unconsciously helped to form his poetic sensitivity. This troubled mother’s reactions to her son’s profoundly innovative work were uneven at best, oscillating between rejection, lack of understanding and enthusiasm. Having outlived Baudelaire, she helped to promote her son’s posthumous success.This book brings to life the passionate and conflicting relationship between the mother and son. The confrontation of their different worlds, expectations and disappointments enhances the readers’ knowledge of the poet and of his work.
