Yawning for the Guillotine

As I was reading over "To the Reader" last night in preparation for our essay test today, I kept coming back to the fact that Baudelaire lists all these horrid sins, sicknesses, and vices in our lives, and yet thinks the worst of all is ennui.

Now, I don't think his sentiment was a particularly novel one.  This painful, soul-sucking form of listlessness has certainly plagued many people and civilizations.  However, I remembered that Baudelaire published The Flowers of Evil in 1857, following many years of continuous turmoil in France (and in fact, all over the world).  Obviously there was the French Revolution in the late 1700s, the rise of Napoleon and all the wars he brought on, the Paris Revolution of 1830 forcing the abdication of Charles X, the February Revolution in 1848 and the proclamation of the republic (again), the "Bloody June Days" of 1848, Napoleon III's coup d'etat in 1851, the Crimean War, etc.

I mean, at some point, the people of France must have just gotten...tired.  Like, that's a lot of war and revolution in half a century.  Baudelaire himself did have some revolutionary sentiments and respect for the working man; he even fought on the barricades of revolution.  Perhaps his message has something to do with his personal life, but I also think it's possible that he is appealing to the French people to continue striving for universal harmony and social justice and to not just give up and admit defeat in the face of hardship.  To not just wait for death (whether of the body, mind, spirit, revolution, or otherwise) but to take action and continue to rise.