Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire was a 19th century French poet, translator, and literary/art critic. At his birth, Baudelaire's mother, Caroline Archimbaut-Dufays, was 28; his father Francois Baudelaire was 61. Charles' father instilled in him an appreciation for art, taking his young son to museums and galleries, and teaching him to paint. When Charles was six, his father died and Charles became very attached to his mother, but when she remarried, he was sent to boarding school. The school was ruled by military discipline which caused much of Baudelaire's solitude and fits of crushing melancholy. Baudelaire resented the strictures of his life and was, in turn, difficult and rebellious. He frequently fought with students and teachers. He began to write poems, which were not well received by his masters, who felt them examples of precocious depravity, unsuitable for his age. He eventually attended the College Louis-le-Grand, but was expelled in April 1839. In an attempt to draw him away from the co