New lines to The Jewels, inscribed in a copy of Les Fleurs du Mal, has been unveiled as the volume comes up for auction

More than 150 years ago, Charles Baudelaire scrawled an extra verse of his erotic poem The Jewels into a copy of his landmark collection Les Fleurs du Mal. The stanza has never been made public, with the book’s previous owner wanting to keep it private, but ahead of its auction next week, the lines have been revealed to the world.

The Jewels was one of six Baudelaire poems banned by a French court in 1857, less than two months after Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) was published, and the poet and his publisher prosecuted for offence to public decency. The court ruled that the erotic verses – beginning “La très chère était nue”, or “My darling was naked” – would “necessarily lead to the excitement of the senses by a crude realism offensive to public decency”. The conviction was only overturned in 1949.

Baudelaire wrote the additional verse into a first edition of the book, sending it to his friend, the journalist and literary critic Gaston de Saint-Valry, as a “testimony of friendship”. According to auction house Drouot, the verse was only previously reported by Baudelaire expert Yves Le Dantec in 1928, who tried and failed to persuade the book’s former owners to make it public. Due for sale on 22 November, its estimated price is €60,000-€80,000 (£51,000-68,000).

“The verse added by the poet is completely unknown, and gives this copy a major literary importance,” writes Drouot in its catalogue.

“Et je fus plein alors de cette Vérité: / Que le meilleur trésor que Dieu garde au Génie / Est de connaître à fond la terrestre Beauté / Pour en faire jaillir le Rythme et l’harmonie,” wrote Baudelaire. The lines, which come after a verse in which Baudelaire’s naked lover is seen only in the light of the hearth, translate as: “And I was full then of this Truth: / That the greatest treasure reserved by God for the Genius / Is to know profoundly earthly Beauty / So that from there can spring forth Rhythm and harmony.”

Drouot’s Myrtille Dumonteil told France Info that “the writing has been authenticated and is the hand of Baudelaire. It y is the type of object that one always hopes to find in an estate.”

The lot will also include the 1928 letter from Le Dantec, in which he attempted to persuade the book’s previous owner to make the verse public. “I do not need to stress to you the primordial interest represented by this discovery of an original verse by the great poet,” writes Le Dantec. “I consider that there is no unpublished note, word, not even a letter from a man such as Baudelaire which should remain unknown, that everything concerning him is interesting. Far from devaluing such a treasure, the ‘disclosure’ could only increase its value – assuming that is the real reason for your negative response.”

Seen today as a classic of 19th-century poetry – TS Eliot called Baudelaire “the greatest exemplar in modern poetry in any language” – Les Fleurs du Mal’s reception in 1857 was far from welcoming. Linking sexuality, love and death, touching on lesbian love and the seamy side of urban life, one 1857 reviewer wrote: “Never has one seen so many breasts bitten or even chewed in so few pages.” Another in Le Figaro, denounced the collection’s “putridity”.

Source: Baudelaire’s unknown extra verse to erotic poem revealed | Books | The Guardian

Cesar Award-winner Guillaume Gallienne (‘Me, Myself and Mum’) returns with his second feature, starring Comedie-Francaise actress Adeline d’Hermy.

For his 2013 feature debut, Me, Myself and Mum, actor Guillaume Gallienne crafted a clever autobiographical comedy where he starred as both himself and his domineering French mother. Best described as a “coming in” movie where, in a major third-act twist, the director revealed that he was actually hetero despite the assumptions of everyone around him, Mum made a sizeable splash at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and went on to win three Cesar Awards, including best film honors.

In his follow-up effort, Maryline, Gallienne once again focuses on a sole performer — in this case, fellow Comedie-Francaise thespian Adeline d’Hermy, who became a societaire of the historic French theater back in 2010 and has performed in productions of works by Moliere, Marivaux, Shakespeare and Marguerite Duras.

Without much of a traditional plot, Maryline is basically a vehicle to showcase 30-year-old d’Hermy’s talents on stage and on screen, where until now she has played small roles in films like Yves Saint Laurent and Camille Rewinds. This will no doubt change after people see her in Gallienne’s generous, if somewhat vacuous, portrait of an actress-in-the-making, which follows the titular lead character from one catastrophe to another until she eventually comes into her own.

Set in an unspecified time period that looks vaguely like the late ‘70s or early ‘80s, the episodic narrative picks up Maryline (d’Hermy) as she arrives for her first big movie shoot, which is some sort of costume drama directed by a tyrannical German auteur (Lars Eidinger). Cripplingly shy yet alluring in mysterious ways, Maryline “has something,” as they say about budding stars, though it’s hard at first glance to see what. When she gets her period on set — in a contrived plot device that yields zero laughs — and embarrasses herself in front of the camera by failing to speak up, Maryline winds up loosing her cool, then punching out the director and calling it quits.

For a time she disappears into a working-class life as a mailroom girl in a Coen-esque office building, while also becoming something of a major lush. A few scenes set in her humdrum Gallic village, where her father died and her mother runs a local café, divulge bits of biographical information, but Maryline pretty much remains a cipher. She’s unable to communicate with others, spends a lot of time wallowing in her apartment and seems borderline on the spectrum. Yet when she’s given the chance to perform again — by a kindhearted film director (Xavier Beauvois) and lead actress (Vanessa Paradis), who helps her to overcome stage fright — Maryline manages to find her true calling, which turns out to be in the theater rather than on the screen.

This is definitely an actor’s movie, and one with little concern for story or character or even any kind of general meaning. Yet if you view Maryline as a performance piece rather than as a typical film — although Christophe Beaucarne’s gorgeous photography helps to lend it some cinematic flair — it can be intermittently thrilling to see how d’Hermy’s character slowly but surely crawls out of her shell and learns her craft, leading up to a closing act that’s a tour de force of wordless gestures and suppressed rage. Gallienne cleverly keeps us in the dark during the extended finale as to whether we’re watching a scene from Maryline’s life or a depiction of it on stage, blurring the lines between reality and fiction while doubling down on his movie’s theatricality.

Such effects could prove frustrating to viewers looking for something more relatable — Maryline has underperformed in France thus far, grossing a fraction of what the breakout hit Mum did in its first week of release — while likely making the film a pure curiosity item abroad. But as a work entirely dedicated to revealing the artistry of its lead performer, Gallienne’s sophomore effort ultimately does the trick, and by the time the curtain falls one longs to see what d’Hermy will do next.

Production companies: LGM, Gaumont, France 2 Cinema, Don’t Be Shy Productions
Cast: Adeline d’Hermy, Vanessa Paradis, Alice Pol, Eric Ruf, Xavier Beauvois, Lars Eidinger
Director-screenwriter: Guillaume Gallienne
Producers: Cyril Colbeau-Justin, Jean-Baptiste Dupont, Sidonie Dumas, Guillaume Gallienne
Director of photography: Christophe Beaucarne
Production designer: Sylvie Olive
Costume designer: Caroline De Vivaise
Editor: Valerie Deseine
Casting director: Nathalie Cheron
Sales: Gaumont

In French
107 minutes

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