Acquires reputation for excellence.

   

1870

Begins principal period of poetic production, which, by all signs, runs its course by 1874.
   

 

January: Georges Izambard hired by the collège to teach rhetoric. Develops a mentorial relationship with Rimbaud. Rimbaud’s first poem is published, “Les Etrennes des orphelins,” in La Revue pour tous.
   
 

May: Rimbaud writes letter and sends poems to Théodore de Banville, noted Parisian poet. Asks for encouragement; no response from Banville is known. In July, eruption of Franco-Prussian war.
   
 

August–November: Rimbaud runs away to Paris, where he is jailed. Upon release, retreats to Douai, home of Izambard’s aunts. Remains several weeks. Fetched by Izambard at Rimbaud’s mother’s insistence. Rimbaud returns reluctantly, remains briefly, flees again, mostly on foot, around the region. Returns to Charleville in November. Schools remain closed due to war.
   

1871

Flees to Paris in February, returning in March. War comes to a close with the declaration of the Commune in Paris, to which Rimbaud may or may not have been a witness. In May, writes the so-called “seer letters.” Summer: writes “The Drunken Boat.” Letters to Banville and to Paul Verlaine, another noted poet. Verlaine responds enthusiastically: “Come, dear great soul, we call to you, we wait for you.” Sends money and arranges for Rimbaud to come to Paris.
   
 

September: Rimbaud leaves for Paris. Put up by Verlaine, then by Banville and by Charles Cros. Becomes acquainted with Paris literary life. Acquires reputation for brilliance and brattiness. Develops relationship with Verlaine, to the consternation of Mathilde, Verlaine’s wife. Volatility.
   

1872

Verlaine leaves wife, flees with Rimbaud. Reconciles with wife, leaves wife again, moves to London with Rimbaud. Melodrama.
   

1873

Winter: Rimbaud and Verlaine in London. Summer: upheaval, ending in July in Brussels, where Verlaine shoots Rimbaud in the wrist. Police interrogate. Verlaine given a penile/rectal exam, from which it is inferred he is a participant in “unnatural practices.” Sentenced to prison: two years. Rimbaud returns to family home. October: at M.-J. Poot, Brussels, Rimbaud has his Une saison en enfer printed; takes a handful of copies, leaving over five hundred at the shop, to which he never returns.
   

1874–1879

Sees Verlaine for the last time in February 1875 upon his release from prison; gives him the manuscript of the poems known today as Illuminations. December 1875: death of sister Vitalie, of synovitis. Travels: to London, Stuttgart, Milan, Marseille, Paris, Vienna, Holland, Bremen, Stockholm, Alexandria, Cyprus, in search of work as a tutor, teacher, soldier of fortune, and foreman.
   

1880

Leaves Europe, to which he will not return for eleven years. March: employed as construction foreman in Cyprus.