Belgium Stripped Bare

Set against the backdrop of April 1864, the narrative follows Baudelaire as he leaves Paris for Brussels, grappling with the fallout from the censorship of his seminal work, Les fleurs du Mal. Facing financial ruin, he pawns his treasured translations of Poe, desperate to survive. In Brussels, he becomes an outcast once more, with rumors casting him as a spy for the French police, intensifying his isolation and struggles as he navigates a precarious existence in a foreign city.