‘Poets of the decadent school-the decadents-are reproached for their obscurity.  This is not a valid criticism.  What is there to understand in a line of verse? Absolutely nothing.  Poetry is not an exercise from Latin. I love Lamartine, but the music of his verse satisfies me. One does not gain much by peering under words.  There is little enough to find there. And one cannot demand of music that it have meaning, much meaning.  Lamartine and the decadents make a little more fuss about it, that is all.’

- J.Renard