Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire, (1821-67), French poet. He be-came addicted to hashish and opium in his youth and contracted the syphilis of which he eventually died. In 1842 he came into his inheritance but his extravagant and dissolute behaviour led his guardians to obtain a judgment placing his capital in trust. His first collection of poems, Fleurs du mal (1857; revised 1861), led to trial and conviction for obscenity and blasphemy; some of them remained banned until 1949. In 1862 he was declared bankrupt and from 1866 he was paralysed and spent the rest of his life in hospitals.
