The Rimbaud Verlaine Trail

The destiny that took Verlaine to Juniville is the story of his life and his work. After a tumultuous two-year period with Rimbaud which took him to London and Brussels and led to his imprisonment in Mons, Paul Verlaine returned to the Ardennes to soothe his heart. At the Lion d’Or inn, he wrote and finished the collection of poems entitled ‘Sagesse’. He also prepared a virulent book there. In this anthology, he was to publish works by poets as yet unknown: Stéphane Mallarmé, Tristan Corbeer and Arthur Rimbaud. In the preface, he introduces the latter as the great genius of poetry. He was to give his work a name intended to shatter his image as a Parnassian poet. ‘Les poètes maudits’ (The Accursed Poets) was to become inextricably linked with the decadent scene and prove a resounding success. His poetry was finally recognised.

“This French countryside is awful! My fate depends on this book, for which half a dozen atrocious stories still have to be invented. How can atrocities be invented here?”… And yet, it was at his mother’s family farm that Rimbaud was to write one of his greatest works. Walking around Roche, you can imagine the poet in the loft of the barn, completing ‘A Season in Hell’. This masterpiece harbours both a total rejection of his past and a need for a passionate life, for an immediate life. This poem is also an adieu. Rimbaud discovers that the western world is closed. Once it had been published, Arthur left for the East, in search of absolute purity. He was to lead the life of an adventurer there. Nothing remains of the Cuif family home but a wall. Where the loft once stood, there is now a commemorative stele of Rimbaud.

“How could he have returned here time and time again, to rejoin family figures so stubbornly?” (Julien Gracq) The peaceful countryside around Roche was above all a place of inspiration for Rimbaud. Let us follow in the poet’s footsteps, walking along these paths beneath a blue sky. Quiet countryside, where the pace is set by the work of the soil, as the seasons pass. But it was too quiet for Arthur. He tried to flee, avoiding manual work so as not to take root. His escape, his freedom, was to write. A waymarked road runs through the countryside around Roche, passing where the poet ‘with soles of wind’ once trod these paths. The seven-kilometre route, enhanced by five sculptures representing his poem ‘Vowels’, goes past Vonq station, Méry chapel and the wash house.

It was in the city of Charleville — “an exceptionally idiotic small provincial town” — that Arthur Rimbaud was born on 20 October 1854. The tone was set! He shows us his childhood head-on in ‘Les Poètes de sept ans’ (Poets at seven years), a magnificent, ferocious poem expressing his rebellion against his mother. She loved her children, but in her own way. The daughter of a farmer, she was taciturn, like many people of the land, and they lacked tenderness. Rimbaud’s overflowing imagination led him to crazy dreams: what a contrast between the suffocation, the narrow-mindedness of his family home, the provincial town, and his tumultuous inner life!

The Rimbaud myth is a little like the James Dean of the 19th century: his life was short but rich. Everything has been said about Rimbaud... But despite everything that has been written, all the studies, the genius of this rascal remains inexplicable. Rimbaud is the young man who discovered perfect poetry, at a stroke. He wrote his first poem at the age of 15 and completed his work at 21, laying down his pen forever. In just six years, this young man was to revolutionise French poetry. The museum, an old 17th-century mill, contains some remarkable illustrations of the poems by Picasso, Cocteau and Fernand Léger. It houses the personal effects of Rimbaud and his trunk, with which he went to the ends of the earth. Information: This museum will be closed in 2014 while work is carried out. Until it reopens, a space dedicated to the poet is open to the public in the Museum of the Ardennes.

Rimbaud was to make some amazing journeys. He thought only of leaving, to flee the Ardennes town which at the time was in the midst of an industrial revolution, and his mother’s home village, Roche. His travels were to take him to the four corners of the earth, to the Dutch East Indies and to Jakarta… He worked in Greece, joined the Dutch colonial army only to desert three months later, and went as far as Ethiopia. Thanks to lighting effects along with video shows and photographs, visitors can enter this world of travel, strangely sensing a certain tension in this virtual world: the modernity of Rimbaud makes itself felt, naturally.

At the time of the two poets, there was nothing touristic about Bouillon. Paul Verlaine noted, in Sketches of Belgium: “The paved areas of Bouillon are horribly paved. You’d think they were pebbles, though we’re I don’t know how far from the sea. Little houses of uneven slate stones, covered with slate, too” It must all have looked grey and sad. A few kilometres away, the French army was routed at the battle of Sedan: haggard soldiers, mere shadows of the imperial army, wandered along the quays made filthy by the tanneries and overlooked by the gloomy ruins of the fortified castle. At the Hôtel de la Poste, Verlaine talked to the innkeeper who told him of the arrival of Napoleon III, before his captivity. “The Emperor was as pale as death. He sat at the head of the table, carved and served as the master of the house, with perfect sang-froid: all in silence; then he went straight up to bed.” Not having the financial resources of an Emperor, Rimbaud and Verlaine stayed at the Hôtel des Ardennes.

The colonel’s castle! After the French Revolution, this former property of the Latour d'Auvergne, dukes of Bouillon in the 18th century, passed into the hands of Colonel Grandjean, the late uncle of Verlaine who, with the Great Army, went on the Russian Campaign and was awarded the Legion of Honour. Although Verlaine never lived here, his poems evoke this lost wealth.

It was born in 1984. This first book village in the Ardennes took its inspiration from the first village of its kind in the world - Hay-on-Wye, in Wales. The two became twinned and a huge book festival organised in Redu attracted a large crowd. This was a marvellous opportunity to lend a helping hand to this lovely hamlet, which had been suffering a serious rural exodus. It soon became essential visiting for book lovers. Bookshops opened and every year, during Easter weekend, the Book Festival attracts hundreds of visitors. The thirty bookshops have something to suit every reader, from the simply curious to passionate bibliophiles.

Leaving, leaving, leaving Charleville, this is what the young Rimbaud wanted. In 1863, the railway crossed the steep-sided Meuse valley: it went where the Industrial Revolution was unfolding, to Revin, Fumay and Givet. Rimbaud jumped on the train and into progress. He was to see this fabulous machine pass beneath the mountain of the Four Sons of Aymon and cross the Meuse over huge viaducts. These days, it is possible to cycle from Charleville to Givet along one of the loveliest green paths of Europe (open to non-motorised vehicles). You can return by train, if you wish, along this same line that carried Rimbaud towards his dreams of escape. Bicycles can be taken on the trains free of charge.

Vresse-sur-Semois, nestling on the banks of the Semois in a forest setting, has inspired many a landscape painter. This village, lying on the edge of the province of Namur, is on a human scale, as is the little Saint-Lambert stone bridge that takes you across into another world, that of the imaginary Ardennes.

3 quai d'Orfeuil 08300 Rethel Tél. : +33 (0)3 24 38 54 56 / +33 (0)3 24 39 51 45 www.sud-ardennes-tourisme.com

10 place Carnot 08400 VOUZIERS Tél. 03 24 71 97 57 www.tourisme.argonne-ardennaise.fr

La Manse Abbatiale 08160 Elan Tél. : +33 (0)3 24 37 25 85 www.paysdessources.com

22-24 place Ducale BP 419 08107 Charleville-Mézières cedex Tél. : + 33 (0) 3 24 56 06 08 www.ardennes.com

4 place Ducale BP 229 08102 Charleville-Mézières cedex Tél. : + 33 (0) 3 24 55 69 90 www.charleville-tourisme.com

Place du Château 08320 Vireux Wallerand Tél.: +33 (0)3 24 42 92 42 www.valdardennetourisme.com

located at the entrance to the fortified castle esplanade Godefroid, 1 - 6830 Bouillon +32 (0)61/46.62.57 info@bouillon-initiative.be www.bouillon-initiative.be Open : - all year round except 25th December and 1st January - In December, January and February morning

quai des Saulx, 12 - 6830 Bouillon +32 (0)61/46.52.11 info@bouillon-tourisme.be www.bouillon-tourisme.be Open all year round from Monday to Saturday from 10am to 6pm and on Sunday from 10am to 5 pm Closed on 25th December to 1st January

Grand-place, 7 - 6850 Paliseul +32 (0)61/28.77.37 info@si-paliseul.be www.si-paliseul.be Open : - during school holidays from Monday to Saturday from 10am to midday and from 2pm to 4pm - the rest of the year : open on Friday from 4pm to 6 pm and Saturday from 9am to 1pm

place de l'Esro, 60 - 6890 Redu +32 (0)61/65.66.99 hautelesse@swing.be www.haute-lesse.be Open : - from 1st March to 31st October from 9am to 6pm - from 1st November to 28th February from 9.30am to 4.30pm