These erotic, sometimes lesbian poems were then excluded from all regular editions of Les Fleurs du Mal until the rehabilitation of Baudelaire and his collection by the Cour de cassation in 1949. On August 20, 1857, a few weeks after publication of the collection by Poulet-Malassis, six poems from Les Fleurs du Mal were indicted by the Tribunal correctionnel of the Seine for affront to public decency (“ outrage à la morale publique”) because of their alleged “crude realism”: “Les Bijoux”, “Le Léthé”, “Femmes damnées”, “Les Métamorphoses d’un vampire,” “À celle qui est trop gaie”, and “Lesbos” (the last two reproduced here with translations by Samuel N. Currently the most revered and studied collection of French lyric poetry, Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) was the subject of one of the most famous literary trials in France.
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