Abstract: Why did Benjamin, in the 1930s, become interested in the figure of the chiffonnier, and why did he associate this figure with Baudelaire? In his pessimistic description of the triumph of merchandise in the nineteenth century, he marks the chiffonnier as the incarnation of the most abject misery. But the Lumpensammler also embodies a modern experience - that of allegory - which ties in with the poet and, beyond that, with the collector and with childhood.
