Bertrand and Beatrice Baudelaire
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Bertrand and Beatrice Baudelaire are fictional characters in the book series A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. They are the parents of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire. They are both presumed dead, having died in the fire of the Baudelaire Mansion.
| Bertrand Baudelaire | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | Mentioned in The Bad Beginning |
| Created by | Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler) |
| Information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Age | Adult, Possibly Deceased |
| Spouse(s) | Beatrice Baudelaire |
| Children | Violet Baudelaire, Sunny Baudelaire, Klaus Baudelaire |
| Address | Baudelaire Mansion |
Contents |
[edit] Bertrand Baudelaire
Bertrand Baudelaire is described by Lemony Snicket as having been a jovial and friendly man. It was revealed in The Penultimate Peril that his first name was Bertrand. He and his wife Beatrice were members of the secret organization V.F.D., and were friends with many of its members.
Mr. Baudelaire was, according to The Hostile Hospital, a good cook. His need for help in opening a can of condensed milk was the beginning of Sunny's interest in cooking. He was also good friends with Dewey Denouement, and Dewey mentioned that the two liked to recite an American humorist poem of the nineteenth century composed by John Godfrey Saxe together.
In The Erastz Elevator, the book also mentions a time when he tried to make a whole salad meal on the floor because he was simply too tired to stand.
[edit] Beatrice Baudelaire
| Beatrice Baudelaire | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| First appearance | Mentioned in The Bad Beginning |
| Last appearance | The Beatrice Letters |
| Cause/reason | Died of being incinerated |
| Created by | Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler) |
| Information | |
| Gender | Female |
| Age | Adult, Possibly Deceased |
| Occupation | mother |
| Family | Baudelaire |
| Spouse(s) | Bertrand Baudelaire, Lemony Snicket (past boyfriend) |
| Children | Violet Baudelaire, Klaus Baudelaire, Sunny Baudelaire |
| Address | Baudelaire Mansion |
In The Beatrice Letters, which was published before The End, it is revealed that Beatrice's full name is Beatrice Baudelaire, making her a relative of the Baudelaire orphans. It later becomes clear that this Beatrice is the Baudelaire orphans' mother, and that there is another Beatrice Baudelaire, Kit Snicket's child, who is born in The End and raised by the orphans. The Beatrice Letters reveals that both Beatrices are baticeers (a person who trains bats). Baticeer is an anagram for Beatrice, much as "My Silence Knot" was an anagram for Lemony Snicket and is often used in the letters both Beatrices send to Lemony in possible code.
Lemony Snicket was in love with Beatrice and they were engaged, but she canceled the marriage and married Bertrand instead. Various hints are dispensed throughout the series as to why she called off the marriage. According to Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, Lemony Snicket is mistakenly reported by The Daily Punctilio as dead. This possibly backfires, because in The Grim Grotto, Snicket makes reference to Captain Widdershins convincing Beatrice that a certain story in a newspaper was true. The other evidence for her belief was that she had planned to name Violet 'Lemony' had she been a boy, in accordance with the family custom of naming a child after a friend who had passed away. We can assume that Beatrice at one time believed that Snicket was dead. When Lemony was revealed to be alive, she had already married Bertrand and she could not marry him. However, it is possible that this is not the reason Beatrice broke off her engagement with Lemony, as told in The Beatrice Letters she returned his engagement ring and sent him a 200-page book explaining why the two could not wed, something she could not have done had she believed Snicket to be dead, although it may have been after he was revealed to be alive. In The End, when Kit Snicket nears death, she informs the Baudelaire children that "their families have always been close, even if they had to stay apart from one another".
Snicket mentions Beatrice's death in the dedication of each book. Beatrice, the Baudelaire orphans' mother, may have stolen Esmé Squalor's sugar bowl, which is an important artifact in the series. In The Ersatz Elevator, Esmé declares to the Baudelaires that she wanted to "steal from [them] the way Beatrice stole from me." In The Penultimate Peril, Esmé exclaims "Beatrice stole the sugar bowl from me!" However, in The Hostile Hospital, Lemony Snicket states that he, and not Beatrice, stole the sugar bowl.
Even prior to the release of the thirteenth book, there was speculation that Beatrice was the Baudelaires' mother, based on the fact that a list of anagrams in The Hostile Hospital includes an anagram of "Beatrice Baudelaire". However, the same list includes an anagram of "Red Herring" (a similar passage, juxtaposing evidence that Beatrice is Mrs. Baudelaire and the "Red Herring" anagram appears in The Unauthorized Autobiography. However, the red herring may also be the name "Monty Kensickle', yet another anagram for Lemony Snicket). The Baudelaires have heard her name mentioned twice by Esmé Squalor, but they have not had opportunity to discuss it, so it was unknown if the name meant anything to them.
The Beatrice Letters reveal that Beatrice and Lemony first met when they were still schoolchildren and Beatrice was friends and classmates with the Duchess of Winnipeg, R.
[edit] Dedications
These dedications are made to the first Beatrice Baudelaire (the mother of the Baudelaire orphans) by Lemony Snicket in each book in A Series of Unfortunate Events.
| Book | Quotation |
|---|---|
| The Bad Beginning | To Beatrice -
darling, dearest, dead. |
| The Reptile Room | For Beatrice -
My love for you shall live forever. You, however, did not. |
| The Wide Window | For Beatrice –
I would much prefer it if you were alive and well. |
| The Miserable Mill | To Beatrice –
My love flew like a butterfly Until death swooped down like a bat As the poet Emma Montana McElroy said: "That's the end of that." |
| The Austere Academy | For Beatrice –
You will always be in my heart, In my mind, And in your grave. |
| The Ersatz Elevator | For Beatrice –
When we met my life began, Soon afterward, yours ended. |
| The Vile Village | For Beatrice –
When we were together I felt breathless. Now you are. |
| The Hostile Hospital | For Beatrice –
Summer without you is as cold as winter. Winter without you is even colder. |
| The Carnivorous Carnival | For Beatrice –
Our love broke my heart, and stopped yours. |
| The Slippery Slope | For Beatrice –
When we first met, you were pretty, and I was lonely. Now I am pretty lonely. |
| The Grim Grotto | For Beatrice –
Dead women tell no tales. Sad men write them down. |
| The Penultimate Peril | For Beatrice -
No one could extinguish my love, or your house. |
| The End | For Beatrice -
I cherished, you perished. The world's been nightmarished |
| Chapter Fourteen | For Beatrice -
We are like boats passing in the night - particularly you. |
| The Beatrice Letters | To Beatrice,
and From Her |
[edit] Their deaths
The fire which killed Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire was the starting point for the first book of the series, The Bad Beginning. While it has not been explicitly stated whether the fire was accidental or the result of arson, Snicket has several times hinted that someone else was at the Baudelaire mansion when the fire started. In letter correspondence between Mr. Snicket and the Vineyard of Fragrant Grapes (where the wedding between Lemony and Beatrice was supposed to take place) the Sebald code is applied in The Unauthorized Autobiography and says something like "hello, if you are still alive watch out" and then something roughly implying "if you get married here, the count will burn you and Beatrice". The count is supposedly Count Olaf. This is a probable explanation as to who burned down the mansion, but has not been confirmed. In The Wide Window when Mr. Poe is listing the things Olaf is wanted for, he says, "This man is wanted for murder, attempted theft, and pure evil," and Count Olaf adds, "and arson." This implies that Count Olaf has been responsible for at least one fire. However, he cryptically implies that it wasn't him when, after the Baudelaires accuse him of murdering their parents, he says "Is that what you think?".
Other characters, such as Duncan, Isadora and Quigley Quagmire have lost parents in similar fires, and members of V.F.D. are logical suspects.
[edit] Possible survivor
There is evidence that one of the Baudelaire parents survived. The Hostile Hospital. The Snicket File, found in Heimlich Hospital's Library of Records, said "Due to the evidence discussed on page 9, experts now suspect that there may in fact be one survivor of the fire, but the survivor's whereabouts are unknown."
The Baudelaire children took this as meaning that one of their parents may be alive. In The Slippery Slope, Quigley Quagmire implied that he was the survivor of a fire and not Mr. or Mrs. Baudelaire. Lemony Snicket has said, at different times, that Beatrice and Bertrand are both dead.
It is possible that the fire mentioned in the hospital records was actually the Quagmire fire, and that the survivor referred to was, in fact, Quigley.
In The Carnivorous Carnival, when the Hook-Handed Man says that one of the parents is alive, Lemony Snicket says that the statement is not true. However, this could be taken several ways: i.e. it could be that they are both dead, or that they are both alive. But Lemony Snicket also indicates that Beatrice Baudelaire had died, especially in his dedications in the beginnings in each book. So it seems that if both parents are alive, then Lemony Snicket was lying, either about Beatrice being dead or both Baudelaire parents being alive.
In The End, Lemony Snicket also says in Chapter Fourteen that the person that built the boat Beatrice (Bertrand) was in the same place where the Baudelaire orphans were (the island of "Olaf-Land"), what implies that of some way, Bertrand escaped the fire and was in the island.
[edit] Poison darts
The Penultimate Peril also opens up more possibilities about the Baudelaire parents' past. Kit Snicket tells the children about a night that she attended an opera (La forza del destino) with the Baudelaires, and handed them a box of poison darts before Esmé Squalor sees them. Later in the book Count Olaf reveals that his parents were killed by poison darts, and also that he has good reason to hate the Baudelaires. This would imply that the Baudelaire parents murdered Count Olaf's parents, explaining Olaf's grudge against the family (and his motive for burning down the Baudelaire mansion, as many believe), and possibly also why he became a villain. However, this has never been truly confirmed.
One of the 13 Shocking Secrets You'll Wish You Never Knew About Lemony Snicket states that Lemony helped Beatrice to commit a serious crime before her death. Another reveals that Snicket is wanted for arson. However, in Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography, he mentions that he knows of other people starting fires, although he himself did not. There is a possibility that he is only reported to committed arson, and actually was framed.
In The End, Count Olaf, a known arsonist, refuses to confirm or deny the charge that he was responsible for the death of the Baudelaire parents and tells the Baudelaires that they don't know anything.
[edit] Literary allusions
Snicket is apparently fond of using literary and philosophical allusions in his books. The Baudelaires are named after Charles Baudelaire who wrote "La Béatrice" and their father, Bertrand, is possibly named for Aloysius Bertrand, a poet who strongly influenced Baudelaire. Another allusion could be the character of Beatrice from Dante's Inferno who, like the Baudelaires' mother, is a lost love of the narrator.
Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a 19th century French poet known for his macabre style — something also quite apparent in Lemony Snicket's writings.
Violet Baudelaire is possibly named after the lawyer in the von Bülow case.
Klaus Baudelaire is named after Claus von Bülow.
Von Bülow's wife, Martha, was called Sunny.
- Bertrand Baudelaire (the children's father).
- Beatrice Baudelaire (the children's mother, Lemony Snicket's former love).
- Beatrice Baudelaire (Kit Snicket's daughter, of whom the Baudelaire orphans are the guardians)
Bice "Beatrice" Portinari was Dantë's inspiration and "true" love, whom he met when he was 9 and she was 8. However, she married another man and died three years later. This is probably the basis for the elder Beatrice Baudelaire (who Snicket met when he was 11 and she was 10; he fell in love wih her, but she married another man (Bertrand Baudelaire) and died seemingly soon after).
| Preceded by None |
Guardian of Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire | Succeeded by Mr Poe |
| Preceded by unknown |
Facilitators of Olaf-Land | Succeeded by Ishmael |
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