On July 11, 1857, he writes to Malassis: "Quick, hide the edition, the whole edition. I have saved fifty here. The mistake was in having sent a copy to _Le Figaro_! As the edition was sold out in three weeks we may have the glory of a trial, from which we can easily escape." The trial came; he was obliged to suppress six poems (supposed to contain "obscene and immoral passages"). Baudelaire never ceased to protest against the infamy of this trial. A copy of the second edition (not nearly so well printed as the first) is before me: LES FLEURS DU MAL. || Par Charles Baudelaire. || Seconde Edition. || Augmentée de trente-cinq poèmes nouveaux || et ornée d'un portrait de l'auteur dessiné et gravé par Bracquemont. || Paris: || Poulet-Malassis et de Broise. || Editeurs. || 97. Rue de Richelieu, et Beaux-Arts, 56. || 1861. || Tout droits réservés. || Paris: Imp. Simon Raçon et Comp. || Rue d'Erfurth. In comparing the text of 1857 with that of 1861 I find several revisions of certain verses, not always, I think, for the best. For instance, in the _Préface,_ the first edition is as follows: "Dans nos cervaux malsains, comme un million d'helminthes, Grouille, chante et ripaille un peuple de Démons." He changes this into "verre fourmillant;" "dans nos cervaux ribote." On page 22, he writes: "Sent un froid ténébreux envelopper son âme A l'aspect du tableau plein d'épouvantement Des monstruosités, que voile un vêtement; Des visages masqués et plus laids que des masques." In the later text he puts a full stop after "épouvantement," and continues: "O monstruosités pleurant leur vêtement! O ridicules troncs! torses dignes des masques." This reading seems to me infinitely inferior to the reading of the first version. Again, there are certain other changes, even less happy, such as "_quadrature_" into "_nature_," "_divin élixir_" into "_comme un élixir,_" "_Mon âme se balançait comme un ange joyeux,_" into "_Mon cœur, comme un oiseau, voltigeant tout joyeux."_ Baudelaire, in sending a copy of _Les fleurs du mal_ (1861) to Alfred de Vigny, wrote that he had marked the new poems in pencil in the list at the end of the book. In my copy--1857--he has marked, with infinite delicacy, in pencil, only three poems: "Lesbos," "Femmes Damnées," "Les Métamorphoses du Vampire." He underlines, in "Une Charogne," these words in the text: "_charogne lubrique, cynique, ventre, d'exhalaisons."_ At one side of the prose note on "Franciscae meae laudes" he has made, on the margin, a number of arrows.