# Une Gravure fantastique · A Fantastic Engraving

Les Fleurs du mal · Charles Baudelaire · Spleen and Ideal

Source: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/une-gravure-fantastique. Data: https://1732studios.com/books/baudelaire/une-gravure-fantastique.json.

**1** Ce spectre singulier n'a pour toute toilette,  
This strange spectre has, for all its finery,
> «pour tout(e)» + noun — 'as one's only…': «pour toute toilette» means 'as its only attire, for all its dress'. The construction «pour tout X» names the single, meagre thing someone has in place of a whole category: 'for all its X, only…'. The sentence runs over into line 3, where «Qu'un diadème» supplies that one thing — a crown is the spectre's entire wardrobe.

**2** Grotesquement campé sur son front de squelette,  
grotesquely planted on its skeleton brow,

**3** Qu'un diadème affreux sentant le carnaval.  
but a hideous diadem reeking of carnival.
> «sentir» + bare noun — 'to smell of': «sentir le X» (with no article) means 'to smell of / reek of X', and figuratively 'to have the air of, to smack of'. «sentant le carnaval» = 'smelling of carnival, with a carnival reek'. The crown is not regal but a cheap masquerade prop — Death dressed up for a festival of the dead.

**4** Sans éperons, sans fouet, il essouffle un cheval,  
Without spurs, without whip, it winds a horse,
> «essouffler» — to leave breathless: «essouffler» means 'to wind, to make breathless' (from «souffle», breath); more often reflexive, «s'essouffler» = 'to get out of breath'. Here it is transitive: the rider «essouffle un cheval» — drives the horse breathless — yet «sans éperons, sans fouet», with neither spurs nor whip, the apparition needing no goad.

**5** Fantôme comme lui, rosse apocalyptique,  
a phantom like itself, an apocalyptic nag,
> «une rosse» — a nag: «une rosse» is a worn-out, broken-down horse — a 'nag' or 'jade'. Set against «apocalyptique», it deflates the grandeur: this is the pale horse of the Apocalypse (Revelation 6:8), but a sorry, spavined one. «comme lui» ('like it / like him') makes horse and rider a matched pair of ghosts.

**6** Qui bave des naseaux comme un épileptique.  
drooling from its nostrils like an epileptic.

**7** Au travers de l'espace ils s'enfoncent tous deux,  
Through the void the two of them plunge on together,
> «s'enfoncer» — reflexive 'to sink, plunge': «s'enfoncer» is the pronominal of «enfoncer» (to drive in): 'to sink, plunge, bury oneself, press deeper in'. «ils s'enfoncent» = 'they sink/plunge in', the pair driving themselves ever deeper «au travers de l'espace» ('through space, across the void'). «tous deux» = 'both, the two of them'.

**8** Et foulent l'infini d'un sabot hasardeux.  
and trample the infinite with a reckless hoof.

**9** Le cavalier promène un sabre qui flamboie  
The horseman sweeps a sabre that blazes
> «promener» — to move (something) about: «promener» literally means 'to take for a walk'; used transitively of a thing it means 'to move/pass/sweep (it) over or about'. «promène un sabre… sur les foules» = 'sweeps a sabre over the crowds'. The verb makes the slaughter idle, a leisurely stroll of the blade across nameless multitudes that «sa monture broie» — that its mount grinds down.

**10** Sur les foules sans nom que sa monture broie,  
over the nameless crowds his mount grinds down,

**11** Et parcourt, comme un prince inspectant sa maison,  
and rides through, like a prince inspecting his house,
> Present participle as an active simile: «inspectant» is the present participle of «inspecter» ('inspecting'), here describing «un prince» mid-action: 'like a prince inspecting his house(hold)'. «sa maison» carries the older sense of a princely 'house' — estate and retinue. The simile makes Death a landlord touring his domain, the graveyard of all history his property.

**12** Le cimetière immense et froid, sans horizon,  
the cemetery, vast and cold, without horizon,

**13** Où gisent, aux lueurs d'un soleil blanc et terne,  
where there lie, in the glimmer of a wan, dull sun,
> «gésir» — the verb of 'here lies': «gisent» is the third-person plural of «gésir», the defective, literary verb 'to lie (stretched out)', surviving chiefly in the tomb formula «ci-gît» ('here lies'). «Où gisent… Les peuples» = 'where the peoples lie'. The verb is inverted before its subject «Les peuples de l'histoire» in the next line, so the dead are kept waiting until the final word — and «gésir» itself summons the epitaph.

**14** Les peuples de l'histoire ancienne et moderne.  
the peoples of ancient and of modern history.

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