ABSTRACT
“Le sage ne rit qu’en tremblant,” wrote Charles Baudelaire in 1855: “the Wise Man only laughs while trembling” (Œuvres complètes, II, 526). This cryptic maxim, which Baudelaire attributed tentatively to Bossuet or Bourdaloue, requires an explanation, which the poet provides in these terms:
Le sage, c’est-à-dire celui qui est animé de l’esprit du seigneur, celui qui possède la pratique du formulaire divin, ne rit, ne s’abandonne au rire qu’en tremblant. Le Sage tremble d’avoir ri; le Sage craint le rire, comme il craint les spectacles mondains, la concupiscence. Il s’arrête au bord du rire comme au bord de la tentation. Il y a donc, suivant le Sag une certaine contradiction secrète entre son caractère de sage et le caractère primordial du rire. (OC, II, 527)
[The Wise Man, which is to say he who is animated by the spirit of the lord, he who is charged with the practices of the divine formulary, laughs, or gives himself over to laughter, only while trembling. The Wise Man trembles because he has laughed; the Wise Man fears laughter, just as he fears urbane spectacles, concupiscence. He stops on the edge of laughter as if at the brink of temptation. Thus there is, according to the Wise Man, a certain secret contradiction between his character as a wise person and the primordial character of laughter.]
