From April 9, 1866, to August 31, 1867, Baudelaire endures the slow tortures of a body and a soul condemned to go on living; living, what else can it be called, than a kind of living death? To remain, in most senses, himself; to be, as always, Charles Baudelaire; to have in his mind one desire, the desire, the vain desire, of recovery; to be unable to utter one word; to think, to sleep, to conceive imaginary projects, for his near future, for his verse, for his prose: to walk, to eat, to drink; to be terribly conscious of his dolorous situation; to be, as ever, anxious for a new edition of _Les fleurs du mal;_ to mark a date in an almanac, counting three months, when he imagined he would be in a state to superintend the impression of his final edition; to have finally given up all hope, all illusion; to have gazed out of his wonderful eyes, at his friend's faces, eyes shadowed by an expression of infinite sadness, eyes that endured his last tragedy: that is how Baudelaire survived himself to the end. He died on Saturday, August 31, 1867, at eleven o'clock in the morning, at the age of forty-six and four months. So died, simply and without any trace of suffering, this man of genius. Had he been thoroughly understood by the age in which he lived? Blake, who said the final truth on this question: "The ages are all equal; but genius is always above the ages:" was not understood in his age. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND NOTES 1. _Salon de_ 1845. Pax Baudelaire-Dufays. Paris, Jules Labitte, 1845. 72 pp. 2. _Salon de_ 1846. Par Baudelaire-Dufays. Paris, Michel Lévy, 1846. 132 pp. 3. _Histoires extraordinaires._ Par Edgar Poe. Traduction de Charles Baudelaire. Paris, Michel Lévy, 1856. 1. Edgar Poe, La vie et ses œuvres, pp. vii-xxxi. 2. Translations, 323 pp. 4. _Nouvelles histoires extraordinaires._ Par Edgar Poe. Traduction de Charles Baudelaire. Michel Lévy, 1857. 1. Notes nouvelles sur Edgar Poe, pp. v-xxiv. 2. Translations, 288 pp. 5. _Les fleurs du mal._ Par Charles Baudelaire. Paris, Poulet-Malassis et de Broise, 4 rue de Buci, 1857. 252 pp. 1. Dédicace. 2. Au Lecteur.