# Dédicace · Dedication

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · To the Reader

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/dedicace. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/dedicace.json.

**1** Au poète impeccable  
To the impeccable poet
> impeccable: From the Latin «impeccabilis», 'incapable of sinning'. In French «impeccable» means 'flawless, faultless' — here, a poet whose craft never errs. Baudelaire chooses a word that still carries its theological undertone of being beyond fault.

**2** Au parfait magicien ès lettres françaises  
To the perfect magician of French letters
> «ès» — a fused preposition: «ès» is an archaic contraction of «en les» ('in the'), surviving only in fixed learned phrases such as «docteur ès lettres» or «ès sciences». It always precedes a plural noun. «magicien ès lettres françaises» reads 'magician in [the field of] French letters' — a deliberately scholarly, faintly ceremonious flourish.

**3** A mon très-cher et très-vénéré  
To my very dear and most revered
> The hyphen after «très»: Nineteenth-century French hyphenated «très» to the adjective it intensified — «très-cher», «très-vénéré». Modern spelling drops the hyphen («très cher»). The original spelling is kept here exactly as Baudelaire printed it.

**4** Maître et ami  
Master and friend

**5** Théophile Gautier  
Théophile Gautier

**6** Avec les sentiments  
With the sentiments

**7** De la plus profonde humilité  
Of the most profound humility

**8** Je dédie  
I dedicate

**9** Ces fleurs maladives  
These sickly flowers
> «fleurs maladives»: 'Sickly / ailing flowers'. «maladif» means prone to illness, unhealthy. The phrase names the poems themselves as the 'flowers' of the title Les Fleurs du mal — blossoms grown from sickness and evil — and casts the dedication as the handing-over of a diseased bouquet.

**10** C.B.  
C.B.

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Source text: public domain (Charles Baudelaire, d. 1867). English translation: © 2026 1732 Studios, LLC — original draft, pending editorial review.