It’s the birthday of Charles Baudelaire, possibly the most important and influential European poet of the 19th century, although not, to be strictly honest, someone you would ever have turned to for sound financial advice. But when he wasn’t busy running his inheritance into the ground in record time, Baudelaire was writing prophetic art criticism, inventing the prose poem, and producing brilliant translations of Edgar Allen Poe, whom he felt was a kindred spirit.

Baudelaire was born in Paris in 1821. (Paris, France, not Paris, Arkansas. Fun fact: the latter has a 25 foot high Eiffel Tower with a two-tiered water fountain. How adorable is that?) Baudelaire’s father was 30 years older than his mother and kicked off when Baudelaire was six, and for about a year and a half, Baudelaire lived in Oedipal bliss alone with Mumsie, until she remarried and he had to share her again. His stepfather was Major Jacques Aupick, who later attained the rank of general. Baudelaire attended a prestigious high school and did very well as a student, except for the part where he was expelled before graduation for refusing to hand over a note passed by a classmate. (To be fair, it was the last in a long string of infractions.)

Baudelaire pretended to study law at this point but in reality began living the life of a poet, acquiring lots of debt and a case of syphilis. His parents tried to break him of this life by sending him to India but he jumped ship, like you do, and returned to Paris. About a month later, he came into a large inheritance and immediately began spending it on luxury items, hashish, and opium, blowing through half the entire inheritance in two years. His family managed to gain legal control of his money and doled out a small yearly allowance for the rest of his life. Family relations tanked.

During these years, Baudelaire was writing many of the poems that would go into his collection Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil). The first edition of this work came out in 1857, and the second in 1861; the second contained many more poems, minus six from the first that had been banned for obscenity. (France did not lift the ban on them until 1949. You know what prudes the French are.) This second edition is considered Baudelaire’s masterpiece and the height of French Romantic poetry. Throughout this whole time he was also translating Poe, having various passionate love affairs that critics have been analyzing ever since, and writing brilliant art criticism that predicted Impressionism a decade before Impressionism emerged. He also wrote essays on Victor Hugo, Richard Wagner, Eugène Delacroix, and like that.

Stepdad had died in 1857 and Baudelaire’s relationship with his mother improved; however, finances continued to plague him, particularly when his publisher, Poulet-Malassis, went belly up in 1862. On March 15, 1866, Baudelaire suffered a stroke probably caused by syphilis and tragically lost the ability to speak for the last months of his life though he seemed aware of everything going on around him. He died on August 31, 1867. His influence and reputation increased well into the 20th century and he is now understood to be a vital bridge between Romanticism and the modern artist.

His poem “Be Drunk” begins: “You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it—it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk. / But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.” (Read the rest right here.)

Have a fine but sober Monday (c’mon, it’s only 9:44 a.m. as I write this), and stay scrupulously honest to the data.