BAUDELAIRE (Charles). Autograph letter signed Charles to Alphonse Baudelaire. [Lyon], 27th evening [27th December 1834]. 2 pp. in-4, addressed and sealed on p. [4]: To Monsieur Baudelaire, Rue d'Anjou N°2 à Fontainebleau. A very precious autograph letter from the thirteen-year-old Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) to his half-brother Alphonse (1805-1862), to whom he confides, with great liveliness of style and a certain sense of theatricality, the miseries of his life as a schoolboy in Lyons: My dear brother, It's been a long time since I wrote to you, a long time since you replied to me. Both sides are wrong, even-handed, and I am the first to make amends, since I am the youngest. I went back to school this year and made some good resolutions, and I'm keeping them...... fairly well. The bad thing is that when I'm studying, chatting as I do, I always get some nasty lecture. It's now that it's good to write these damned pensums, now that your fingers are cold and stiff as marble. And then there are the stops, my eternal pitfall. The pupil : Hey, neighbour, why don't you lend me your paper so I can copy it? The teacher : Sir, half an hour's break. The pupil : Ah, naughty! The teacher : Sir, if you're going to murmur, you'll have to do twice as much. The pupil : And why...... The teacher : Triple. &c., &c., &c., &c., &c., it sometimes goes a long way. To be under arrest is to be planted like a statue against a wall or against a tree, to freeze there (in winter) for as long as a tyrant requires. But it's silly to complain about the college regime; having behaved well, what did I have to suffer? I suffered nothing. It would be better to make even firmer resolutions for the year 1835, to wish my brother all the best, and as a secondary school pupil to give him as a present the places in 7th, 4th, 3rd and 2nd that I have obtained since the beginning of the year. Your brother Charles. This witty letter from the still adolescent poet is quoted in the biography by Claude Pichois and Jean Ziegler. Freckles, small tear due to unsealing on 2 pages. Baudelaire, Correspondance (Pléiade), I, 33 - C. Pichois and J. Ziegler, Baudelaire, 1987, p. 93.