The first complete Dutch translation of Baudelaire’s Les fleurs du mal was written by the Flemish poet and translator Bert Decorte (1915-2009). Published in 1946, the translation De bloemen van den booze dates from the second half of the 1930s and accompanies the young poet's debut. The translation is remarkable for its work on form (metre and rhyme) and rhythm. The importance given to the metre leads to translation strategies modulated according to metric constraints. There are also transpositions that are part of the appropriation of meaning. This appropriation highlights the other side of the creative process at work in translation. This depends on the development of the resources of the Dutch language and literature in a Belgium where the French-speaking community, who dominated all aspects of economic, political, social and cultural life, maintained until the end of the 19th century the idea of a fundamentally monolingual country. Flemish literature had to establish itself as autonomous in the face of its influential neighbour, which first involved a Flemish contribution to French literature (Verhaeren, Maeterlinck, etc.), then the conversion of a French inspiration, in which Baudelaire played a pivotal role, to give it a Flemish expression (Van Langendonck and K. van de Woestijne). Literary relations with the Netherlands followed a similar trend. The translation of Les Fleurs du Mal, as well as Decorte's own poetic work, was received in Flanders as the modern expression of this emancipatory effort. The translation owes its features to this close relationship from which it gives rise to a truly Flemish Baudelaire.