The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre Read Free

Louis Daguerre’s apocalypse as an invention of the artistic mind, no different than a belief in God or Beauty or Piety. He enjoyed watching Louis, the pensioned scientist and artist, hatch and unfold inside this epic delusion, seeing his mind clamor at the fidget wheels of madness.
    Baudelaire said, “You know how I feel about this photography. Let the tourists use it to ogle the pyramids or the Louvre, let the geologists capture fossils, the excrement of the ancients; but don’t touch art. Leave that to the painters.”
    Louis said, “I won’t have this argument again. I’m willing to pay you a finder’s fee. A hundred francs if you find me the right woman.”
    Baudelaire looked down at the list, then chased a sip of coffee with a swig of absinthe. He said, “Have you established some criteria? The world’s last naked woman captured with a camera—that’s quite momentous.”
    “Yes, I’m aware.” Louis ran his hands along the edge of the table.
    The young counter-girl arrived with a plate of hard-boiled eggs and herring, and a bowl of bouillon. They watched her as she laid out cutlery, a wisp of tawny hair hanging down from her bonnet.
    “What is it you want in a nude?” Baudelaire said loudly. The counter-girl smiled, then blushed and wiped her hands down her apron. She fled to a nearby table. “She’s new here,” Baudelaire added.
    Louis cracked an egg on the side of the plate and began to unpeel it. “She must have grace and youth.”
    “Yes.”
    “The curvature of the neck must be gentle, perhaps a slight sway in her back.”
    “I concur.”
    “A vitality in her cheeks.”
    “You’ve done some work in this area,” Baudelaire said, suddenly delighted.
    “Neither too noble nor too common-looking. She must carry herself between airs and humility.”
    “A shopgirl with fiery green eyes.”
    “Full and crimson lips.”
    “I don’t think I can eat.” Baudelaire clasped his hands together and rested his chin for a moment on his fingertips. He looked out the window into the street, where a group of mourners was walking home from a funeral. “I would reconsider the apple on your list,” he said.
    “How so?”
    “The apple is not exotic enough. Apple is plain, like the English. The Frenchman wants something darker and juicier. The end of the world, it seems to me, is a peculiarly French idea.”
    Louis looked down at the list and tapped his lip with his index finger. “What would you think of a pear?”
    “You know I am a poet,” Baudelaire said, “and having said that, I should say that my sensibility is one of integration. I seek coherence in the cockerel cries and the street dung. I would choose your fruit the same way you choose your woman. Clearly, the queen of the fruit empire is the greengage plum—strange, juicy, sinister.”
    “But the apple represents the original sin, the fall from grace.”
    “Yes, and the plum represents seduction and lust,” said Baudelaire.
    “I knew you were the right person to consult.”
    “I have opinions about flowers, too.”
    “Tell me.”
    “‘Aroused flowers burn with the desire to outdo the sky’s azure by the energy of their colors, and the heat, turning scents visible, seems to make them rise to the stars like smoke.’”
    “Very nice.”
    “My point is, there needs to be some symmetry among your flower, your woman, and your fruit. I suggest wild roses. There it is, the divine trinity: wild roses, greengage plums, and green-eyed shopgirls.”
    A brief silence settled over the table.
    “The sun and moon were not my ideas,” Louis said. “François Arago, a friend at the observatory, has asked me to make some plates of them.” The fact that an esteemed man of science such as Arago wanted the sun and moon to be cataloged further suggested to Louis that human enterprise was winding down.
    “Seems fine. Everyone likes the sun and the moon.” Baudelaire took several mouthfuls of his bouillon. “And who is this Isobel Le