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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 March 2023
While he lived in Brussels between 1864 and 1866, the French poet Charles Baudelaire wrote a pamphlet later known as Pauvre Belgique! (“Poor Belgium!”). In this unfinished work, he expressed his aversion for the country and its inhabitants. He presented Belgium as a pretentious “homunculus” – an artificially created small human being – that was “the outcome of an alchemical operation of diplomacy.” According to him, the Belgians were lazy, avaricious, stupid, and conformist – somewhere “between the ape and the mollusc.” This rather harsh judgment may have sprung from his personal frustrations; at that time, he was confronted with financial, personal, and health problems. Nevertheless, the idea that Belgium was an artificial creation was by no means a Baudelairian idiosyncrasy. As we saw earlier, other prominent European personalities – including leading politicians – shared this view.
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