and A. M. Blackmore.

Verlaine, Paul, Selected Poems, trans. and ed. Martin Sorrell.

A CHRONOLOGY OF ARTHUR RIMBAUD

1853

8 February: marriage of Captain Frédéric Rimbaud and Vitalie Cuif. They set up house in Charleville, north-eastern France, very close to the Belgian border.

1854

20 October: birth of Jean-Nicolas-Arthur (Arthur), their second son, and second of the four children who lived.

1860

Rimbaud’s parents separate.

1861

Rimbaud’s education begins at Institution Rossat.

1865

Attends Collège de Charleville.

1869

Rimbaud’s first poem (in Latin) published. He is aged 14.

1870   Teacher Georges Izambard arrives at Rimbaud’s school. January: publication of Rimbaud’s first poem in French. May: sends three poems to Théodore Banville in Paris. 19 July: start of the Franco-Prussian War. Late August: first of Rimbaud’s flights to Paris. He is arrested for travelling without ticket, and briefly imprisoned. 2 September: France suffers defeat at Sedan. 4 September: the Third Republic proclaimed. A Government of National Defence formed. Rimbaud begins friendship with minor poet Paul Demeny. October: Rimbaud wanders through Belgium, ending up in Brussels. During the autumn and winter Paris is besieged by German forces.

1871

28 January: armistice ends the Franco-Prussian War. 8 February: a new National Assembly elected, with a Royalist majority. 17 February: Adolphe Thiers becomes the government’s Head of Executive. 25 February: Rimbaud arrives in Paris, but leaves after two weeks. 18 March: socialist Paris Commune proclaimed, in opposition to the government. Rimbaud is sympathetic to Commune, but it is unclear whether he was in Paris during its existence. 15 May: Rimbaud sends Demeny the so-called ‘Visionary letter’ (Lettre du voyant). 21–8 May: the Commune finally suppressed in the ‘Week of Blood’ (la semaine sanglante). Late September: Rimbaud goes to Paris, at the invitation of Paul Verlaine.

1872

Late January: Rimbaud goes to Arras, north-eastern France. Early May: returns to Paris. 7 July: Verlaine deserts wife and baby to go with Rimbaud to Belgium. 7 September: the two go to live in London. December: Rimbaud returns to Charleville.

1873

January: Rimbaud rejoins Verlaine in London.