A new exhibition in Mons recalls the drunken row with fellow poet Arthur Rimbaud that led to a charge of attempted murder
Sitting in prison cell number 252 in Mons city jail, Paul Verlaine, the then little-known French poet, drew sketches and composed what many literary critics consider to be his finest poetry.
Unlike his contemporary and friend Oscar Wilde, who was sentenced to hard labour in Reading jail, the Frenchman – who had been convicted of shooting his fellow poet and lover, Arthur Rimbaud – had a relatively easy incarceration. Away from the Parisian cafes, the beer and, particularly, the absinthe that was to destroy his health, Verlaine converted to Roman Catholicism and spent his 555 days behind bars reading, and writing work that would later earn him the title of “prince of poets” among his peers.
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