Charles Baudelaire is associated with the intellectual and artistic scene in Paris in the 1850s, which is where he wrote his most significant poetry. Paris has long been considered one of the great centers for artists, with a tight-knit, thriving community of poets, novelists, and painters who were willing to starve for the sake of their passionate commitment to their arts. The city has existed for centuries, since it was founded as a fishing village by the Romans in 52 b.c. , and it has been the capital of France since the fifth century. In Baudelaire's time, though, Paris was in the process of becoming the cosmopolitan city that it is known as today.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Paris was still organized like a small medieval town. It only contained about a third of the land of contemporary Paris, and was surrounded by walls...