First Impressions

Georges Izambard first arrived in Charleville in September 1869 and took up a teaching post at the Lycée that Rimbaud attended. Izambard had been employed to teach the rhetorics class, the penultimate year of the classical education as it was then structured. At only 20 years old, Izambard was just a few years older than the majority of his new students, and in fact actually younger than a handful of them.

Izambard was made aware of Rimbaud before he had even taught his first class. The principal of the school explained to him that Arthur was their star pupil, a safe bet to ensure that the school made a good showing in regional competitions, and that Izambard was under strict instruction to carefully nurture this prize talent.

Izambard’s first impression of Rimbaud was of an unusually small, unusually quiet fifteen-year-old:

“The Rimbaud I knew was the “dreamy little Tom Thumb,” small and shy — don’t trust those kinds of shyness —the somewhat stiff rhetoric student, well-behaved and mild-mannered, with clean fingernails, spotless notebooks, astonishingly correct homework, school grades that were ideal, in short, one of those exemplary and immaculate little monsters, embodying to the extreme the type of the prize animal, the “well-behaved” boy of the lycée”

However, as Izambard got to know him better, another Rimbaud began to gradually reveal himself. Once the quiet student learned that his new teacher was passionately interested in poetry and was an aspiring poet himself, he began to open up to him. Rimbaud even started to linger in the classroom at the end of the school day, so that he and Izambard could discuss poetry together on the walk home.

A friendship developed between them in which Rimbaud felt safe to speak his mind, and Izambard recalls that debates between them could become quite heated, as they both felt able to express their opinions forcefully. For Rimbaud, this was priceless; he was not only naturally shy, but he had also been brought up in a stultifying home ruled by a domineering mother, where he was not at all free to say what he wished. For what was probably the first time in his life, Rimbaud was able to engage in conversations with an adult on equal intellectual footing, without fear that he would be punished either for his ideas or the way in which he expressed them.

Izambard in turn reports that he gradually became aware of just how repressive Rimbaud’s home life was, and that he felt considerable sympathy for him because of it. He started to lend his pupil books and reading material that his mother would forbid – not because these books were anything that we would now consider inappropriate for a teenager, but because they often expressed views that challenged the establishment views of the day. He recalls one particular occasion when he was called into the principal’s office because Rimbaud’s mother had written an angry letter complaining about a book he had lent her son – Notre Dame de Paris, by Victor Hugo.

Mme Rimbaud was not angry about this because of any specific content in the book, but because she was suspicious of Victor Hugo’s reputation. Due to his frank depiction of social ills and vocal criticism of both the French government and the corruption within the Catholic church, many of Hugo’s works had actually been placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, or the list of forbidden books. As a devout Catholic, Mme Rimbaud feared that her son was being led astray.

Poetic mentorship

Izambard was not only a teacher and mentor, but an early audience for Rimbaud’s writing. Rimbaud started to hand in poems along with his homework, eager for Izambard’s opinion. Izambard gives an illustrative account of a discussion they had about Rimbaud’s poem À la musique:

“I was traditional… but fair, and since, in this context, I was no longer in the classroom, I didn’t correct, I offered suggestions. ‘I’m not your teacher here,’ I would tell him. — ‘Fair enough,’ he’d reply, ‘but tell me anyway…’ I didn’t expect him to accept all of my critiques — is that the way of poets? He listened, but he argued back strongly.

There is, however, one line in the poem À la musique that I dare to claim credit for. His original version:

Et mes désirs brutaux s’accrochent à leurs lèvres… (‘And my brutal desires cling to their lips…’)

…sounded too much like the blustering excess of some dumb, puffed-up heartbreaker; it clashed with his modest, timid schoolboy demeanor. He liked my reasoning. By chance, in an earlier poem of mine, I had a ready-made line with the same rhyme. I offered it to him the way you might offer someone a cigarette; he liked it and accepted it:

‘Et je sens des baisers qui me viennent aux lèvres.’ (‘And I feel kisses rising to my lips.’)“

Izambard could already perceive that Rimbaud was a prodigious talent – one not in need of instruction so much as creative dialogue. He said that he started to see a “new Rimbaud” emerging month by month, such was the startling rate at which the boy was able to imitate, absorb and assimilate different poetical styles.

Then, at the end of the school year in August 1870, Izambard left Charleville for the summer holidays. He may not have known it at the time, but due to the coming disruptions of the Franco-Prussian war he would never again return there to teach.

However, it is due to the fact that Izambard left Charleville in 1870 that we now have some of Rimbaud’s earliest known letters - it is also through one of these early letters that we know precisely when Rimbaud first read and engaged with Verlaine’s poetry. In this letter from August the 29th of 1870 we see Rimbaud express a strong appreciation for Verlaine’s early collection Fêtes Galantes, and specifically his poem Dans la grotte. An excerpt of his letter is below:

“I have Paul Verlaine’s Fêtes galantes, in a charming little pocket edition. Really strange, very funny; but, really, adorable. Sometimes there are bold liberties taken; for example:

“And the terri|ble tigress of Hyrcania”

is a line from that book.

Buy it, I recommend it — La Bonne Chanson, a little book of poems by the same poet; it’s just been published by Lemerre; I haven’t read it — nothing gets here — but several papers speak very highly of it.

Goodbye — send me a 25-page letter — general delivery, and quickly!

A. RIMBAUD

P.S. — Soon, revelations about the life I’m going to lead after the holidays…”

This is a translation of the letter, but there is something very significant in the original French text which doesn’t really come through in the English44 please read this post for a thorough explanation of what the “terrible tigress” might actually mean.

It is striking that Rimbaud homed in on and underscored Verlaine’s hidden, homoerotic pun, and was eager to test Izambard with it, to see if he was able to pick up on its underlying meaning too. While Izambard undoubtedly did pick up on the line’s metric oddity, it’s unclear if he ever fully grasped what Rimbaud was pointing out to him55 See Appendix 2 for an account of how Izambard letter visited Verlaine to show him this letter. It’s also unclear if Izambard picked up on the meaning of Rimbaud’s cryptic post-script, or its ominously trailing ellipses…

Rimbaud in jail and his first stay at Douai

The very next week, on the 5th of September 1870, Izambard received another letter from Rimbaud – this time from jail. Rimbaud wrote to tell him that he had run away from home to Paris but had been arrested when he was unable to pay the full train fare and was now stuck in Mazas jail.

“Cher Monsieur,

What you told me I shouldn’t do, I did: I went to Paris, abandoning my maternal home! I left August 29. Stopping when getting off the train because I was penniless and owed the railroad thirteen francs, I was taken to the prefecture, and today I am awaiting my verdict in Mazas! Oh! —I depend on you as though on my mother; you have never been less than a brother to me: so I ask for the immediate help you’ve offered before. I wrote my mother, the imperial prosecutor, the Charleville chief of police; if you don’t hear anything from me on Wednesday, before the train for Paris leaves from Douai take that train, come here and claim me by letter or go to the prosecutor yourself, beg, vouch for me, pay my debt! Do everything you can, and, when you get this letter, write, you too, I order you, yes, write to my poor mother (quai de la Madeleine, 5, Charlev.) to console her, write me too, do it all! I love you like a brother, I will love you like a father.

Taking your hand, your poor

Arthur Rimbaud”

Izambard agreed to pay the outstanding debt for Rimbaud’s train ticket and brought him back to the house he was staying at in Douai, the home of his two aunts, the Gindre sisters. Rimbaud stayed here for a few weeks. Later, Izambard would contend that Les Chercheuses de poux66 “The Lice Seekers” was inspired by Rimbaud’s experience of being cared for by the gentle Gindre sisters during this time, who helped to comb through his hair and get rid of the lice he had picked up in jail.

Due to postal disruptions caused by the Franco-Prussian war, Rimbaud ended up staying in Douai for a few weeks, diligently writing out poems and demanding paper from the Gindre sisters. When the sisters suggested that perhaps he could save paper by writing on both sides of the sheet he responded with shocked indignation that a writer should never write on both sides if the poem is intended for publication!

Izambard includes this anecdote to illustrate that Rimbaud was already committed to the idea of becoming a published author; in fact, during this stay in Douai Izambard was able to introduce Rimbaud to Paul Demeny, his friend, the published author of Le Glaneuses and also part-owner of his own publishing house. Rimbaud sent Demeny a total of fifteen poems in all. Luckily for posterity’s sake Demeny took good care of these manuscripts, and it is Demeny’s “dossier” which comprises a large part of Rimbaud’s surviving early poems.

Writing poetry is not all that Rimbaud got up to during his second stay at Douai. In reaction to the threat of the advancing Prussian army, Izambard went to the local offices of the National Guard to sign up for the war effort. Rimbaud went with him:

“When I went to sign up, Rimbaud offered to accompany me on this little patriotic stroll. On the way, he suddenly declared, flat-out: “I’m going to enlist at the same time as you.” I tried to explain that, since he was not yet of age, he couldn’t enlist without his mother’s permission —but he refused to believe such an “absurdity,” and when the recruiting officer gave him a firm and final “no,” he walked out, fuming about “bureaucratic cowardice.”

Although Rimbaud was not allowed to officially enlist, he was permitted to join in with the practice drills – although the insufficient local funds meant that the drills took place using broomsticks in place of rifles.

Rimbaud also left behind at least one more poem in Douai, in addition to those he gave to Demeny. Izambard recalls finding this “memento,” left by Rimbaud in an unusual location:

“After his departure, the next day or a few days later, someone in the household noticed a short poem, in his handwriting, on the front door of the house. It didn’t take up much space and wasn’t very visible, written in pencil on the dark green of the door. Someone pointed it out to me, and I ran to read it. I should have taken a pencil and copied it down on the spot — it was so simple. Too simple: each of us thought of it, and no one did it. The house wasn’t on fire, after all — come on!… No, but the following week, painters came early one morning to give the door a fresh coat of paint. By the time we realized the danger, the damage was done.”

After a few weeks of dealing with delays and disruption caused by the Franco-Prussian war, Izambard was finally able to arrange Rimbaud’s return to Charleville. Fearing that he would simply run off again if he didn’t accompany him on the journey home, Izambard chose to come with him to deliver him to his mother’s care. Izambard reports that Rimbaud was subdued on the journey home:

“Along the way, I told them about an invitation I had received that very morning from one of my old school friends, Paul Durand, now living in Brussels with his mother. He had invited me to spend a bit of vacation time with him. I wouldn’t have much time to spare, but I would still stop by to see him on my way back from Charleville… Rimbaud had withdrawn to a corner of the train car, didn’t say a word — his mind was elsewhere. Was he still writing verses, or thinking about the welcome that awaited him?”

It is possible that Rimbaud was composing verses in his head during this journey, as his poem Rêvé pour l’hiver is dated a few days later and specified that it was written on a train77 this poem, “Dream for Winter” is post scripted with the words “En wagon, le 7 octobre 1870.”. The welcome that awaited Rimbaud was also indeed furious – with Mme Rimbaud slapping Arthur around the head, and, as Izambard reported to the journalist Rodolphe Darzens later, shouting at him as though he had “abducted her son and she knew already about Rimbaud’s inclinations.”88 Graham Robb, 2000 – his translation of Darzens’ interview notes

Rimbaud’s return to Douai

Mme Rimbaud had cause to swallow her anger and appeal to Izambard only a few days later; after only a couple of days back at his “maternal” home, Rimbaud had run away once again, and she wanted his help to find him. Izambard - who was by this point probably getting pretty tired of this dysfunctional family and its demands on his time - agreed to help search for him and checked in at the homes of a few of Rimbaud’s school friends, but with no luck.

After giving up the search, Izambard resumed his original vacation plans, and went to visit his friend Paul Durand. Durand and his mother gave him a warm welcome – and mentioned that his friend “little Rimbaud” had been by to see him, but, finding Izambard not there, had continued on to the Gindre’s house in Douai to wait for him. I seems that Rimbaud had been listening to Izambard’s conversation on the train, and had remembered his remark about his plans to visit Durand, and had deliberately timed his journey through the French and Belgian countryside to terminate in a rendezvous with Izambard at Durand’s house.

Izambard hurried back to Douai to find Rimbaud being looked after by his aunts, apparently calm and writing out several new poems: Au Cabaret vert, La Maline, Le Buffet, Ma Bohème. All of which, as Izambard said, “had the nerve to be charming”.

That “heartless” Rimbaud

Rimbaud stayed for, a little while longer before a letter from his mother arrived, demanding that Izambard arrange for Rimbaud to be escorted home – this time by the police. Izambard reports taking a very downcast Rimbaud to the police station:

“Rimbaud is ready and waiting for me, his little bundle under his arm. He’s said a kind goodbye to my aunts, who made him promise “to behave himself”… He promised. Along the way, I speak to him from the heart — about my concern for his future, for his glory, and for his dignity too… I have the impression that he understands me, that he’s inwardly moved, that his heart is tight… Maybe I’m wrong! He is so impenetrable… We arrive: I present him to the commissioner; the latter promised me that he wouldn’t be treated harshly. We shake hands firmly, and… farewell, then!… It was the last time I ever saw him. But a letter from him soon arrived for me:”

original manuscript of the 2nd Nov. 1870 letter

Charleville, November 2, 1870

Monsieur — For your eyes only —

I got back to Charleville a day after I left you. My mother welcomed me, and I’m here now… completely idle. My mother won’t be sending me to boarding school until January of ’71.

Well! I’ve kept my promise. I’m dying, decomposing in mediocrity, in meanness, in greyness. What do you expect — I stubbornly persist in loving free freedom, and… a whole bunch of things that are “so very unfortunate,” aren’t they?

— I should have left again today; I could have — I was wearing new clothes, I could have sold my watch, and hurrah for freedom!

— So I stayed! I stayed! — And I’ll want to leave again, many more times. Come on, hat, greatcoat, fists in pockets, and out the door! — But I’ll stay, I’ll stay. I didn’t promise that. But I’ll do it to earn your affection: you told me so. I will deserve it.

The gratitude I have for you — I wouldn’t know how to express it today any more than I did the other day. I’ll prove it to you. If it meant doing something for you that would kill me to do — I give you my word, I would do it.

— I still have so many things to say…

This “heartless”

A. RIMBAUD99 On the back of the letter: “War; no siege of Mézières. For when? Nobody knows. — I delivered your message to M. Deverrière, and if more needs to be done, I’ll do it. — Here and there, some franc-tireur activity. Abominable outbreak of idiocy — that’s the spirit of the population. You hear some real beauties, let me tell you! It’s all dissolving.”

Reflecting on this letter years later, Izambard had this to say:

“If anyone wants to judge me as overly… sentimental, I admit that my eyes welled up when I recently found and reread this letter. And I publish it all the more gladly because it seems to me that it does as much honour to Rimbaud as to myself.”

And if the story had all ended there, it would have just been a slightly sad, but ultimately heart-warming account of how an enthusiastic teacher helped a troubled but brilliant teenager to develop his full potential. But of course, it didn’t end there.

The Siege of Mézières

In November of 1870, Rimbaud had just returned home to his mother in Charleville again, this time under a police escort. A few days after his homecoming, Izambard received an unusually emotional letter from his “heartless” student, promising not to run away again.

In his letter, Rimbaud also mentioned that his mother was threatening to send him away to boarding school, a prospect he did not seem to be looking forward to with enthusiasm. However, fortunately for Rimbaud, something happened to save him from boarding school; the Franco-Prussian war, which had broken out earlier in the year, finally arrived on his doorstep.

After the battle of Sedan in September 1870, the Prussian army had advanced further towards Charleville, and on November the 17th, just two weeks after Rimbaud sent the “heartless” letter, Mézières, the next town over from Charleville and the home of Rimbaud’s best friend Delahaye, was under siege. German artillery blasted explosives into the small town, and Delahaye reports watching shells fall on the church bell tower, his neighbours’ houses, and even the local boarding school1010 if this was the school that Mme Rimbaud had planned to send Arthur to, this may explain why he never went there in the end!

Delahaye recounts how a local newspaper reported eighty to a hundred people dead in Mézières – including him and his family. Upon hearing the news, Delahaye reports that Rimbaud:

“began to think about me and, in the hollow of his right hand, weighed, with a touch of melancholy irony, the little pile of ashes his friend might now have become.”1111 Delahaye témoin de Rimbaud

Rimbaud set off towards his friend’s house to find his remains, but when he got there found that the house, although mostly destroyed, contained no corpses. Delahaye and his family had, fortunately, evacuated the house before it was shelled, and had taken refuge with some neighbours. When Rimbaud was finally able to track his friend down, his first question was about what had become of their pipes? Both boys’ mothers naturally disapproved of them smoking, so Delahaye had taken to stashing their pipes in an alcove in the chimney of his house. Unfortunately, when the boys went back to Delahaye’s house they found the chimney demolished and the pipes obliterated.

There was one other casualty of the shelling that might have been significant to Rimbaud; the offices of a small local newspaper1212 This newspapers was Le progrès des Ardennes - In 2008, a text was discovered in a November 1870 issue of the newspaper, signed Jean Baudry, a pseudonym that Rimbaud was using at the time. The text also matches some memories of Delahaye, and is therefore accepted as one of Rimbaud’s few successful attempts at publication. It is a short prose text called Le rêve de Bismarck, describing the future German chancellor dozing off while dreaming of taking Paris, and burning his nose!, where Rimbaud had been hoping to get some work experience as a journalist, had been destroyed. Once again, his literary ambitions had been exploded.

The siege of Mézières lasted until the 2nd of January 1871, at which point the French army was defeated and the Prussians took the town. Despite this gloomy outcome, Delahaye and Rimbaud managed to have a good time together. The Prussian soldiers billeted there were not exactly hostile to the surrendered townspeople, and, since ordinary routines were disrupted and school had not yet resumed, the two boys had plenty of time to spend their days exploring the rubble of the blown-out buildings, reading, talking, and enjoying the outdoors.

Delahaye Returns to School

Meanwhile, Izambard had been closer to the war than even Rimbaud and Delahaye. In August of 1870 Izambard had enlisted with the National Guard, while Rimbaud had wanted to sign up along with him but had been rejected due to being underage. While Mézières was being bombarded, Izambard had been involved in combat, and, according to Delahaye, had either been injured or had suffered an ear infection that led to permanent hearing loss:

“Izambard, too, had enlisted; I could have added that, serving in the Army of the North, he suffered terribly during the harsh winter of 1870–71 and contracted the beginnings of an incurable infirmity (loss of hearing), for this poet, this journalist, this critic so gifted at sensing beauty, is also a “wounded veteran” of the last war.”1313 Delahaye témoin de Rimbaud (although Lefrere uncovered reports that Izambard already suffered from deafness when he first arrived in Charleville, so it is possible that Delahaye was either mistaken, or Izambard had pre-existing hearing problems which were exacerbated by his experiences during the war.)

Izambard was not left totally deaf, but his hearing was apparently impaired enough to make the prospect of returning to teach at Charleville a non-starter. When school finally resumed in Charleville, Delahaye returned, but Rimbaud refused. By this point, Rimbaud seemed to be in a state of total rebellion against all the expectations his mother and society held him to. He grew his hair long1414 see this post for more on this, started smoking a pipe, and, while Delahaye was studying in school, Rimbaud spent time loitering outside of it.

Although Rimbaud was disillusioned with formal education by this point, Delahaye found the new teacher at the Charleville school, Édouard Chanal, to be a great guy, and suggests that his praise of Chanal may have led Rimbaud to tentatively try to befriend him, although he was ultimately too shy to do so:

“The young professor’s literary tastes were just what he liked. Add to this Rimbaud’s obsessive need for intellectual communion, and you’ll understand why one afternoon, while wandering alone through the paths of the Petit-Bois, he made his way over to Édouard Chanal, who was sitting on a bench, peacefully smoking his pipe. What exactly did he want to say to him?… I don’t know… We’ll never know. This episode will remain shrouded in the darkness of the immense chaos of ideas and contradictory impulses that governed Rimbaud’s destiny. He obviously wanted to talk, to exchange thoughts, to share some verses, to get an opinion, perhaps even ask for one—just as later he would submit his poems to Verlaine’s judgment…I believe that, unconsciously, Rimbaud wanted Chanal to replace the absent Izambard. There are many similarities between them—most of all: simplicity, modesty, and courage without any affectation.“1515 Delahaye témoin de Rimbaud

Delahaye’s account is touching, if a bit proto-Freudian in his speculation about Rimbaud’s unconscious motives.

The Evolution of Rimbaud’s poetry

Although Izambard never returned to Charleville, Rimbaud continued to send him new poems he had written. These new poems were nothing like the “charming” ones he had written at Izambard’s house in Douai the previous autumn. These poems were much darker, and more savage in mood; they were revolutionary (Chant de guerre parisien), sadistic (Mes Petites amoureuses), scatological (Accroupissements), and sacrilegious (Les Premières communions)1616 this may have been inspired by his younger sister Isabelle’s first communion, which occurred on the 14th of May 1871.

Izambard seems to have been somewhat bemused by this shift in tone:

“he had recently sent me”A Tearful Hydrolat,” an untitled piece that later became Mes petites Amoureuses. I didn’t hide from him that I found it unpleasant. “Is that all you’ve taken from reading Rabelais?” I asked.”

But from a modern perspective, this change in Rimbaud’s mood is perhaps not surprising: In the six or so months since school last broke up for the summer holidays, he had seen a war break out, he had been thrown in jail, he had briefly believed that his best friend was dead, and all his attempts to get recognition for his immense talent had come to nothing.

Rimbaud’s sense of impatience at having his potential repeatedly thwarted must have been unbearable. And now, to add insult to injury, Izambard, who used to be his confidant, seemed unable to comprehend the directions he was moving in. Izambard’s responses of confused distaste may have made it feel like he was outgrowing his mentor.

The Paris Commune and it’s impact on Rimbaud

Something else which was very significant to Rimbaud’s life and writing occurred around this time: the rapid rise and then violent suppression of the Paris Commune. The Franco-Prussian War had led to the collapse of the Second Empire, and the establishment of the Third Republic. For many, including Rimbaud, this seemed like a possible turning point: a move away from the authoritarian controls of the imperial regime.

However, the Republic quickly faced crisis. The Prussian army laid siege to Paris for four months, leaving the capital’s population starving and angry. In January 1871, shortly after the surrender of Mézières, the Republican government agreed to an armistice. As part of the peace settlement, France ceded Alsace and Lorraine. A new government led by Adolphe Thiers was elected soon after, but it was seen by many as aligned with Royalist factions and suspected of favouring a return to the pre-Republican regime.

Tensions reached a breaking point on 18 March, when troops from the regular army attempted to seize the cannons of the National Guard, which were stationed in working-class neighbourhoods of Paris. The attempt failed, and the soldiers withdrew. In response, a group of National Guards and Parisian citizens took control of the city and proclaimed a new form of government: the Paris Commune.

The Commune lasted for a little over two months. It established itself as a locally elected authority for the capital and attempted to carry out a number of immediate social and civil reforms, including the suspension of rent arrears1717 during the Siege of Paris, productive work had ground to a halt. However, despite the workers being unable to generate income, the rentiers and landlords refused to suspend rent, the separation of church and state, the reopening of abandoned workshops under workers’ control, and measures aimed at increasing the legal and political participation of women.

Meanwhile, Thiers and his ministers had regrouped in Versailles, where they planned a return assault on the capital. On 21 May, government troops breached the Parisian defences. What followed became known as the Semaine sanglante1818 “The Bloody Week”, and the Commune was violently crushed. The aftermath was severe: thousands were executed, and tens of thousands imprisoned or deported.

While it is not clear to what extent Rimbaud was directly involved in the Commune, several of his friends claim that he was present in Paris during its early stages1919 see this post We do know for sure that Rimbaud was back in Charleville right before bloody week, and we also know that he was electrified by the ideals of the Commune, and the possibilities that it represented to him.

We know both these things because of a very important letter that he sent to Izambard, immediately before the Semaine sanglante.

Background on the Letter of the Seer

On the 13th of May 1871 , Rimbaud wrote a letter to Izambard which was to become one of the most famous literary letters of all time – his first Lettre du Voyant, or “letter of the seer”2020 Rimbaud sent a second letter, expanding on the themes of the first, to the poet Paul Demeny two days later. A great deal has been written about the letters of the seer, and since there is so much pre-existing debate on the subject, I won’t go too far into it here. Instead, I will focus on Izambard’s own take on what this letter might have meant, and the impact it had on their friendship.

It is important to note that, when he first started writing about his memories of his friendship with Rimbaud, this letter had been lost among Izambard’s boxes of notes. Rimbaud was no longer alive at this point, and Izambard’s memories of how their friendship eventually petered out were hazy. All Izambard could remember was the last poem he ever received from Rimbaud was Le Cœur supplicié.

Searching for a reason why their friendship had ended, Izambard speculated that perhaps it had been something to do with how he had responded to this poem – perhaps he had failed to appreciate it, or maybe Rimbaud had been hurt by the verses that Izambard sent back in response, a humorous but deliberately disgusting parody. All Izambard knew for sure was that, after this, their correspondence had tapered off and never resumed.

However, Paterne Berrichon, one of Rimbaud’s early biographers, seized on this tentative explanation and ran with it. There will be more on Berrichon and his feud with Izambard later, but for now it is sufficient to say that Berrichon was Izambard’s enemy. Berrichon made many untrue claims about Izambard’s friendship with Rimbaud, but one of the lies that angered Izambard the most was Berrichon’s wild exaggerations about how Izambard had responded to Le Cœur supplicié. Izambard explains as follows:

Last year, M. Berrichon hazarded, in veiled language, the “unpublished” hypothesis of a “violent break” between Rimbaud and me. What would it matter to the public if it were true? I answer simply, for the sake of the record, that there was never at any point either violence or premeditated rupture. But M. Know-It-All insists on his legend, and to bolster it, he pretends to know that in May 1871 I received from Rimbaud, in response to some friendly criticisms of mine, a letter “giving the censor leave of his soul”—a letter supposedly “infinitely crude, raving, and full of hyperbolic insults.” (Has he seen this letter? Has he read those insults?) Whereupon, I supposedly took offense in turn. At this point—projecting onto me the venom he has just attributed to Rimbaud—the slanderer allows himself to write:

“M. Izambard… sent the diatribe back to the madman’s mother with remarks…” (Has M. Berrichon read them?) “…with remarks at the very least suggesting coercive measures.”

Heavens! He ends by condemning—just as I myself would condemn—the cowardice of such “denunciation.” As you can see, the recipe has all the spices.

To this tall tale I offer my honest man’s denial.

Izambard consistently and fiercely maintained that, if he had indeed angered Rimbaud with his response, he had never been made aware of this. Moreover, even if he had himself been irritated by some of the jibes that Rimbaud made at him in the accompanying letter, he would never have stooped so low as to “denounce” Rimbaud to his tyranical mother.

The Letter of the Seer

The full text of the letter itself is below2121 a transcription of the original French is available here:

Letter to Georges Izambard 27, rue de l’Abbaye-des-Champs, in Douai (Nord)

Charleville, 13 May 1871

Dear Sir! So you’re a teacher again. One must serve Society, as you told me; you are part of the teaching profession: you’re moving along in the proper rut. — I too am sticking to principle: I cynically let myself be kept; I dig up old college dunces: everything I can come up with that is stupid, dirty, wicked, in deed and in word, I offer to them: I am paid in beer and girls. Stat mater dolorosa, dum pendet filius. — I must serve Society, that’s fair — and I am right — You too, you are right, for today. But at bottom, you see in your principle nothing but subjective poetry: your obstinate return to the university feed-trough — forgive me! — proves it. But you’ll always end up as a contented man who has done nothing, having wanted to do nothing. Not to mention that your subjective poetry will always be horribly insipid. One day, I hope — many others hope the same — I will see in your principle objective poetry, I will see it more sincerely than you ever could! — I shall be a worker: that is the idea that holds me back when mad rage drives me toward the battle in Paris — where so many workers are still dying, even as I write to you! To work now, never, never; I am on strike. Now I am sullying myself as much as I can. Why? I want to be a poet, and I am working at making myself a seer: you will not understand at all, and I can hardly explain it to you. It’s a matter of reaching the unknown by the derangement of all the senses. The sufferings are immense, but one must be strong, be born a poet, and I have recognized myself as a poet. It is not at all my fault. It is wrong to say: I think. One ought to say: I am thought. Pardon the wordplay.

I is an other. Too bad for the wood that finds itself a violin, and a plague on the oblivious who argue about what they know nothing at all!

You are not a teacher to me. I offer you this: is it satire, as you might say? Is it poetry? It is fantasy, always. — But I beg you, do not underline with your pencil, nor too much with your thoughts:

The tortured heart2222 Rimbaud : complete works, selected letters : a bilingual edition translated with an introduction and notes by Wallace Fowlie ; updated, revised and with a foreword by Seth Whidden, 2005

My sad heart slobbers at the poop. . . .
My heart is full of tobacco-spit!
They spew streams of soup at it,
My sad heart slobbers at the poop . . .
Under the jeerings of the soldiers
Who break out laughing
My sad heart slobbers at the poop,
My heart is full of tobacco-spit!

Ithyphallic and soldierish
Their insults have depraved it;
At vespers, they make frescoes
Ithyphallic and soldierish;
O abracadabratic waves,
Take my heart, let it be saved!
Ithyphallic and soldierish
Their insults have depraved it!

When they have used up their quid,
How will I act, O stolen heart?
There will be Bacchic refrains
When they have used up their quid!
I will have stomach retchings
If my sad heart is degraded!
When they have used up their quid
How will I act, O stolen heart?

That doesn’t mean nothing.

ANSWER ME: at M. Deverrière’s, for A. R.

A heartfelt goodbye,

Arth. Rimbaud

Izambard’s Initial Response

When Izambard first wrote down his recollections of the “Letter of the Seer” and Le Cœur supplicié year’s later2323 in a July 1898 article for La Liberté, he could only recall the poem itself, and the vague sentiment of the letter - but nothing specific. He assumed that the actual letter itself was long gone.

Looking back, Izambard recalled that his response to the poem was playful. He also offered up a poem of his own in response, utilising the same ‘triolet’ form as Le Cœur supplicié. This poem, La Muse des méphitiques, is a pastiche of Rimbaud’s original, addressed to the “mephitic muse” (AKA the spirit of the fart), and containing deliberately absurd and grotesque imagery of lepers and molluscs:

La Muse des méphitiques by Georges Izambard

“You see, it’s very simple,” I added. “You take the most incoherent thoughts, the most mismatched words, pair them up however you can, and from that crossing, prematurely born, comes a delightful little fetus which you carefully seal in a labeled jar… And beware, with your theory of the voyant, of ending up yourself in a jar—a specimen in the museum…”

Izambard did also admit that perhaps he had been too quick to dismiss Le Cœur supplicié as a mere provocation, designed to shock, and that he may have overlooked the poetic and emotional sophistication that lay beneath the challenging imagery. However, this was an admission that he later came to regret, as it was used against him by an unexpected enemy.

Paterne Berrichon

Paterne Berrichon was the pseudonym of Pierre-Eugène Dufour. He was an early fan of Rimbaud’s and one of his first biographers. You could perhaps even say that he was a super-fan, since he went to quite extreme lengths to try and crack the secrets of Rimbaud’s life and poetry. It is ironic then, that he ultimately ended up perpetuating some of the biggest and most enduring myths and distortions about the poet - some of which endure even to this day.

For example, if you have ever heard that:

• Une Saison en Enfer was the last thing Rimbaud ever wrote, and served as a farewell both to literature and his sinful past

• That Rimbaud burned most of the copies of Une Saison en Enfer after publication

• That the relationship between Rimbaud and Verlaine was entirely chaste, and that there is no evidence that Rimbaud ever had a sexual relationship with any other man either

• That Le Cœur supplicié/du pitre/volé is an account of Rimbaud’s gang-rape by Communard soldiers2424 see this post for further discussion on this theory

• That Rimbaud experienced a death-bed conversion, confessing to a priest and taking communion before he died

Then it is likely that the source you heard this from was influenced by Berrichon, either directly or indirectly. Berrichon has had an inordinate and outsized impact on Rimbaud’s legacy, and this is because…

Berrichon becomes Rimbaud’s brother-in-law

As part of his investigations into Rimbaud’s life, Berrichon (or Dufour)2525 Izambard later pointed out the irony in Berrichon’s real name, and the fact that he ended up marrying Rimbaud’s sister, quoting this passage from Une Saison en Enfer: “You see that elegant young man, entering the beautiful and quiet house: he’s called Duval, Dufour, Armand, Maurice, who knows? A woman devoted herself to loving that wretched fool: she died, she’s surely a saint in heaven now…” reached out to Rimbaud’s younger sister Isabelle for information. The two started exchanging letters back and forth on the subject of her dead brother, and, during the course of this correspondence, Berrichon asked Isabelle to marry him.

Isablle Rimbaud is a complex character.2626 see this post for more on Isabelle she and her sister Vitalie were two of the only people for whom Rimbaud seems to have held a simple and lifelong affection, and, in her turn, it is clear from Isabelle’s writing and actions that she loved her brother.

However, Isabelle also possessed an implacably stubborn will, and some very rigid ideas about right and wrong2727 she seems to have had this in common with her mother Vitalie, and her brother Arthur. While she had been caring for her dying brother in hospital she hadn’t even known that he had ever been a writer - however, within mere days of his death, a collection of his writing named Reliquaire, Poésies was released. This was simply unfortunate timing rather than anything planned, but, to make matters worse, the first release of Reliquaire included a preface filled with shocking details about her brother’s life.

The preface was not only controversial because of the scandalous details about Rimbaud, but also because of it’s contested authorship. Most of the facts contained within the preface came from the work of Rodolphe Darzens, a journalist and investigator who spent five years from 1885 to 1890 tracking down friends, family and acquaintances of Rimbaud’s in order to find out as much about his life as possible.2828 Ernest Delahaye, Paul Demeny and Georges Izambard were all among the people that Darzens interviewed.

However, upon Reliquaire’s initial release, Darzens was horrified to see that his meticulous research had been condensed down into a gossipy, salacious preface - with his own name attached. Darzens was adamant that he had not written the piece, but that someone else2929 implied to be Genonceaux, the publisher had paraphrased his notes and then misused his name as the author of the finished preface. Darzens made a formal complaint, and copies of this first release of Reliquaire were seized by police and suppressed, however by this point the damage had already been done.

Isabelle was furious, and perhaps with good reason. To her it must have seemed that the publishers of Reliquaire were ghoulishly capitalising on Rimbaud’s death, and libeling a man who could no longer fight back. Isabelle made it her mission to clear her brother’s name. However, as she progressed with this battle, it must have eventually become clear to her that many of the awful things people were saying about Arthur Rimbaud, were, unfortunately, true. Nonetheless, Isabelle stayed steadfast in her goal. She was going to defend her brother’s reputation - even if she had to lie to do so:

“As far as biography is concerned, I recognize only one theme: my own; I reject all others as false and offensive […] If, at some point in the future, I were to allow anything to be reprinted, it would be reviewed and revised according to what I consider to align with the matured intentions and ideas of my dear author.”3030 Isabelle Rimbaud, in a letter dated the third of January 1892 to Louis Pierquin

If you consider how important controlling the narrative appeared to be to Isabelle, her decision to accept a proposal from a man she had never actually met in real life seems less strange. Perhaps, through marrying one another, both Berrichon and Isabelle gained something they wanted: Berrichon gained insider status within the poet’s family, and Isabelle gained a man of letters who could fight her corner.

Together, Isabelle and Berrichon perpetuated many distortion about Rimbaud’s life and work, most of which were motivated by Isabelle’s desire to disavow the aspects of her brother which confused or disturbed her - in particular his politics, sexuality, and anticlericalism. Izambard served as a convenient scapegoat who could be blamed for corrupting the young Arthur.

Berrichon’s Feud with Izambard

There are conflicting stories around why Berrichon first began attacking Izambard.

H. Bouillan de Lacoste and Pierre Izambard, in their preface to Rimbaud tel que je l’ai connu, offer the following explanation:

Some have tried to explain this falling out as being due to political differences, the two men belonging to opposing camps. Izambard alludes to this in his article titled Arthur Rimbaud rhétoricien. Let us admit that this factor may have influenced their mutual feelings; it was not, in any case, the only one. Another cause, we believe, worsened everything: the matter of the bust of Rimbaud sculpted by Berrichon after the poet’s death. That bust proved troublesome for its creator: how does one sculpt a true likeness of someone one has never met? Berrichon did his best, drawing inspiration from Isabelle’s features and using old photographs as references… Once the bust was complete, unable to judge the resemblance himself and preferring not to rely solely on the family’s opinion, he invited Izambard to come view the work in his apartment in Auteuil.

Izambard went, saw the bust, and was clearly not pleased. This seems well established. What happened then? Always sincere, like Alceste, did he let his disappointment show through the courtesy of his words? Must we explain by this the persistent rancor—if not outright hatred—that Berrichon harbored toward a man who had shown him only kindness until then?

As amusingly petty as the idea of them forming a deadly enmity over a bad sculpture is, Izambard himself had an alternative theory; perhaps his old nemesis, Rimbaud’s mother, believed him to be the secret author of the Reliquaire preface. After Rimbaud’s death, Izambard had indeed started to publish some articles about his famous former pupil, and was willing to share his anecdotes and even publish some of the letters and poems that Rimbaud had sent to him.

Izambard also admitted quite transparently that he had spoken with Darzens about Rimbaud, and had shared some anecdotes in good faith, but he maintained that he had absolutetely nothing to do with the writing of the final preface; instead, he believed that Mme Rimbaud had once again fallen victim to an “offensive resurgence of her old black phobias” and that Berrichon had simply inherited this vendetta against him when he married into the Rimbaud clan.

Berrichon’s Accusations

Whatever the reason for his enmity, Berrichon’s slurs probably felt particularly galling to Izambard because they were so contradictory. They were an odd mix of Mme Rimbaud’s old grievances, plus some brand-new gripes of his own.

Berrichon somehow contrived to portray Izambard as both simultaneousl a corrupting influence on Rimbaud, exposing him to anti-establishment political beliefs and sharing inappropriate books with him3131 Mme Rimbaud had not forgotten the Victor Hugo debacle, and as a censorious Philistine, who lacked the poetic instinct needed to understand Rimbaud’s evolving poetry. Berrichon describes Izambard’s influence over Rimbaud’s developing political sensibilities as follows:

“For the greater part of that school year, Mr. Izambard and Rimbaud, so to speak, were inseparable. Their relationship, the rhetoric teacher confided, was above all that of comrade to comrade; and one must, in view of the facts, conclude that if the young pedagogue did not, with his own hands, overthrow the Empire, he nonetheless fanned the flames of revolution in the awakening soul of his pupil—through the lending of books and newspapers, and through their conversations. Justly marveling at Arthur’s precocity of mind and fever for novelty, he encouraged him—certainly seeing no harm in it—along a path contrary to that in which Madame Rimbaud and the school curriculum had set his education; and the result was that our young rhetorician, while translating for pleasure Juvenal, Tibullus, Martial, Propertius, and Petronius, also wanted to know Villon, Rabelais, the poets of the Pléiade, the Romantics, and the Parnassians, and soon came to know as well the philosophers of the eighteenth century, the Republican historians of the French Revolution, and the socialists, from Saint-Simon to Proudhon.”3232 Paterne Berrichon Jean-Arthur Rimbaud Le poète

Berrichon even tried to insinuate that Izambard had encouraged his young student into an attachment that was inappropriately intense - an unguarded remark that Izambard made to Darzens during his interview suggests that Izambard may have had some idea even at the time of their friendship that Mme Rimbaud harboured these darker suspicions, although these probably reflected more about her growing awareness of and unease with her son’s sexuality than any impropriety on Izambard’s part.

Here is a quote in an early draft of Berrichon’s biography, Jean-Arthur Rimbaud Le poète, in which Berrichon attacks Izambard directly:

“This mother, O ill-humored writer…She now saw in you, the corrupter…If her indignation as a nervous woman, before the moral abduction of her child…”

Izambard’s retort, published in the Mercure de France on the 16th December 1910, was swift and assured:

“Corrupter, moral abduction… I would be very curious, truly very curious, to see the author of Chapter XII give these insinuations a more precise shape. Moral abduction!… Neither moral nor otherwise, sir.”

Izambard’s indignant challenge to Berrichon to either clarify his insinuation or retract it appears to have worked - a later revision of Jean-Arthur Rimbaud Le poète modified this language somewhat, although, judging from Izambard’s commentary on these changes, not entirely to his satisfaction:

“For this mother — O ill-humored writer — had pondered the cause of her son’s change in character. Now she saw in you the reckless advisor.”3333 In a margin note of his own, personally annotated copy of this book, Izambard wrote: “He previously called me “the corrupter.””

If her outrage, as a nervous woman, at her child’s moral upheaval…3434 In a margin note, Izambard wrote: “He had written “moral abduction.” He said he’d abandon these sordid insinuations — and now he evades.”

Berrichon also doubled-down on what he saw as Izambard’s failure to understand and appreciate Le Cœur supplicié. He weaponised Izambard’s admission that perhaps his response to this early, experimental masterpiece had been a bit tactless, and turned it into a stick to beat Izambard with.

Berrichon seems to have been the first to suggest that Le Cœur supplicié was an autobiographical poem, inspired by something that Rimbaud had either experienced or witnessed during his time in the Babylone barracks during the Paris Commune.3535 whether Rimbaud was actually present at the Commune, and if so, where, when, and for how long is still a matter of debate. Although Delahaye does recount that Rimbaud saw drunkenness and disorder in the barracks, he describes this as harmless antics which Rimbaud was amused by3636 Delahaye témoin de Rimbaud. Berrichon, however, twists the narrative into something much darker, claiming that Rimbaud encountered scenes of violence and debauchery, which “saddened him…as evidenced by Le Cœur volé, inspired by those scenes.”3737 Later writers like Simon Godchot, Pierre Arnoult, and Enid Starkie would elaborate further, and explicitly claim that Rimbaud was gang-raped during this time, but the speculation appears to originate with Berrichon

This then gives Berrichon’s accusation a deeper emotional gravity; he implies that Izambard not only failed to understand the poem’s genius, but also failed to recognise the real-life trauma behind it. Here is Berrichon’s much embellished account of how Rimbaud and Izambard’s friendship ended:

“Misanthropy was already encroaching upon his immense capacity for love; a disgust for the masses was assailing his marvellous heart. He could not pour out to his mother the flood of sadness that was drowning the skiff of his disordered soul: Madame Rimbaud, since the first runaway attempt, was more bitterly afflicted than her son.

He sought distraction; he wrote to M. Izambard, sending him The Stolen Heart3838 He is referring to the poem sent along with the first letter of the seer, of which their are three versions with minor variations, called variously Le Cœur supplicié/du pitre/volé, or The Tortured Heart/The Heart of a Clown/The Stolen Heart, in a warm letter in which he announced new aims in poetic art and renounced his former attainments in that regard. No doubt he hoped thereby to interest the friend whom he did not yet judge to be ‘like the others.’ He must also have thought that his letter would serve as the starting point for an exchange of aesthetic ideas, and a trade of those delicate expressions of affection which he so urgently needed.

Alas! The schoolteacher could not comprehend The Stolen Heart, nor the singular and powerful literary ambitions of its author; he responded with a letter so clumsily mocking, and with a parody so vulgar, so lacking in understanding of The Stolen Heart, that Rimbaud, cruelly disappointed both in mind and heart, was seized by a mad fit — and he replied with hyperbolic violence, while at the same time giving the censor leave of his soul. M. Izambard, suddenly more schoolmasterly than ever, sent the diatribe back to the madman’s mother, along with remarks that, at the very least, suggested coercive measures.

Madame Rimbaud, whom this only tormented further, asked Arthur for an explanation. With a shrug, he gave her two blunt descriptors. It was over… No! For the ex-professor has still not, even in this year of 1911, forgiven that mother for the silent reserve with which she received his denunciation.3939 Paterne Berrichon, Jean-Arthur Rimbaud Le poète

This final, fabricated detail about Izambard sending Mme Rimbaud an angry letter angered Izambard more than anything else; perhaps because this was an outright lie, while everything else could be charitably explained away as misinterpretation, or reasonable anxiety on the part of a mother who feared her child had been led astray.

But the allegation that Izambard would have written to Mme Rimbaud to complain about her son was beyond the pale. Berrichon had already called him a “corruptor”, and a “censor”, but this lie made him out to be something even worse - a traitor. Izambard had this to say on the subject:

“Filthy fabrication. A gutless pedant, deflated by me, takes revenge by slandering me. Calumny — stupid, unsubstantiated. I never wrote to Mme Pernelle.4040 Izambard is comparing Mme Rimbaud to the character of Mme Pernelle in Molière’s Tartuffe I had no reason to. The intention to defame remains — it’s a pure lie. And my firm contempt to the liar”

Izambard’s Rediscovers the Letter of the Seer

Izambard’s fussy but forthright pedantry, the trait that had probably irked Rimbaud at times during their friendship, also, paradoxically, turned out to be the very quality that helped Izambard rebut Berrichon’s falsehoods - and also helped him to counter the sanitised narrative that Berrichon and Isabelle were attempting to build up around Rimbaud. As H. Bouillan de Lacoste and Pierre Izambard recount, in their preface to Rimbaud tel que je l’ai connu:

“Whatever the case, Paterne’s attacks—rather poorly named in this instance—soon became so sharp that Izambard had to defend himself. And he did not defend himself half-heartedly. You will read further on his stinging rebuttals, in which he sets the record straight and deflates wild inventions simply by recounting the facts plainly. In truth, his opponent did him a service by forcing him to dig into his archives, from which Izambard in 1910 retrieved letters from Rimbaud and his mother that had lain dormant for forty years.”

In 1910, Izambard finally found the first Letter of the Seer again. Reading this letter more than forty years after it was originally sent allowed him to reassess the end of his friendship with Rimbaud.

His take on the “letter of the Seer” was that Rimbaud was certainly in a combative mood when he sent it, and this was largely to do with the political differences that had arisen between them:

“Rimbaud, now a communard in spirit, through some mental work done far from the action, is somehow surprised that I haven’t followed him into this new transformation. He might just as well call me a “scab” or a “sellout”: I’m one of those lazy ones who works when others dream…The grip of the Commune has temporarily dulled his razor-sharp critical sense: from it, he accepts everything — and admires everything — in one block: the tone of its papers, their slogans, their clichés, even their verbal formalism.”

However, he maintains that he never rose to this bait, and that the letter he sent back was one of friendly banter:

“So he’s clearly picking a fight—but I see it coming without anxiety, because this cheeky tone is nothing new to me. It’s the same tone we took, he and I, back in Douai whenever we didn’t quite see eye to eye. Indeed, our constant closeness had already put us not in a student-teacher relationship, but in that of equals, two friends who respected each other and spoke plainly. And strong words would fly, crude ones sometimes, yes: “That’s idiotic, that’s stupid, you’re boring me to tears!”—blurted out mid-heated discussion, but without bitterness, without leaving a trace or grudge, and needing no reconciliation afterward.

I speak plainly; let those who will understand, and those who won’t, blame me. This defiant tone he resumes here didn’t anger me—it amused me, like an old game rekindled, an invitation to our former verbal fencing matches.”

He also maintains that he recognised that Le Cœur supplicié, was a serious poem to Rimbaud, and that he did not respond with either harsh criticism or overt mockery of the poem itself:

“Timid? Not that he’s afraid of me, but this little work is dear to him, having been born in an hour of black melancholy. He fears I might recoil at some overly realistic details and foolishly dismiss it with a “This doesn’t mean anything. Let him be reassured: I sensed his moral distress, and I have no wish to play the harsh critic.”

In addition to his rediscovery of the Letter of the Seer, Izambard also found one further letter from Rimbaud, dated 12th July 1871. While it lacked the intensity of their earlier correspondence, it suggested that their relationship had not ended in bitterness or enmity, although the warmth had certainly cooled.

Even so, there is a faint trace of distance in Izambard’s recollection. By calling Le Cœur supplicié a “little work,” and by brushing aside Rimbaud’s politics as a passing infatuation, he perhaps underestimated just how deeply these things mattered to his former pupil. There may never have been a rupture, but perhaps there was a misalignment; a mismatch that helps explain why their friendship faded, even if it never broke apart in open conflict.

The Final Word

Bust of Arthur Rimbaud, by Paterne Berrichon

In 1901, Berrichon’s bust of Rimbaud was erected in the Place de la Gare.4141 This version of the bust is no longer there - it was destroyed by the Germans in 1917. Then, in 1923, a new version sculpted by Alphonse Colle was installed, but this was then destroyed in WW2. We are currently of bust number three, made by Dumont in 1954. Hopefully this one will not be bombed any time soon. Not everyone was a fan; Izambard scathingly described it as:

“not resembling him at all; a waste of bronze and granite.”

To be fair to Berrichon, it wasn’t entirely his fault; never having met Rimbaud while he was alive, he had only a few photographs that existed and a handful of portraits drawn by Isabelle to work from. All of these images were also front-on, while his bust was of course three-dimensional, and so he reportedly based the profile view on Isabelle, hoping that her profile was similar enough to her brother’s to provide a good basis.

However, the fact remains that Rimbaud’s offical monument was a poor likeness of the real man. It’s ironic given that, for many years, Berrichon also remained Rimbaud’s semi-official biographer, one who was endorsed by the family and adhered strictly to their party line. In addition to his attacks on Izamabrd, he intimidated any of Rimbaud’s former friends who dared to contradict Isabelle’s “theme” of an upright, penitent, saintly Rimbaud who turned his back on sin just as he had turned his back on literature. Isabelle and Berrichon even contrived to suppress certain works of Rimbaud’s that contradicted this view. Izambard described this state of affairs as:

“Rimbaud, dead, was once again being confined, as Arthur the child had once been”

However, in a strange way, Berrichon’s attacks on Izambard actually helped Rimbaud’s literary legacy. By attacking Rimbaud’s former teacher so personally and so relentlesly, he riled Izambard into retaliation; and, through his retaliations, Izambard not only countered Berrichon’s lies about himself, but many of Berrichon’s other distortions of Rimbaud’s life and work. In a collection of articles and essays across the years, which were eventually collected into the wonderful Rimbaud tel que je l’ai connu, Izambard used his incisive wit to systematically dismanlte Berrichon’s often fanciful interpretations of Rimbaud’s poems, provided letters and accurate biographical details that help to pin down the chronology of Rimbaud’s life, and even exposed potential “doctoring” of Rimbaud’s letters performed by Isabelle and Berrichon.

Most of the distortions pushed by Isabelle and Berrichon have now been rejected entirely by the majority of researcher and academics, and Izambard’s recollections are recognised as one of the most accurate and meticulously evidenced primary sources on Rimbaud’s early life.

Georges Izambard’s headstone

Georges Izambard died in February 1931, aged 82, and his headstone remembers him simply as a man of letters. After a lifetime defending both his own name and Rimbaud’s, it seems fitting to leave the final word to him:

“peace to his memory: Rimbaud’s ashes do not need to be adored - it is enough that they be respected.”

…