The Funeral

On the 2nd of September, 1867, Charles Baudelaire was buried in Paris, and it was a small, hurried affair. A summer storm was threatening, several of the poet's friends were still away for the holidays, and only a handful of mourners followed the coffin. Manet, who admired Baudelaire, was one of them. He seems to have painted this small canvas from memory afterward and never finished it, keeping it in his studio for the rest of his life. The dark funeral procession winds along at the foot of the Butte Mouffetard, and on the skyline you can pick out the dome of the Val-de-Grâce and the towers of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont. Above the grey rooftops the sky hangs heavy and unbroken.