On arrival at the Gare de Strasbourg, he found the police waiting: he was arrested for theft, deemed a vagabond, and taken immediately to the local police station, then to the Mazas prison. But selling his books – valuable ones, for he had been an excellent pupil – did not produce enough money to pay for the full journey to the capital. He walked probably to Givet, and there took the train. He left on foot very early one August morning, without a word to anyone. And from the age of twenty-five until his death, desert roads.Īt fifteen, drawn to the city of poets, and feeling lonely and decidedly redundant in Charleville, Rimbaud took off for Paris, his head full of naïve dreams. There were incessant shuttles between Mediterranean ports (Marseille or Genoa) and Charleville walking towards the sun. Between twenty and twenty-four, he several times tried the route to the South, returning home for the winter. To Brussels, to pursue a career in journalism. Between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, he walked to reach great cities: the Paris of literary hopes, to become known in Parnassian circles, to meet poets like himself, desperately lonely and longing to be loved (read his poems). The man himself, when still very young, had described himself thus: ‘I’m a pedestrian, nothing more.’ Rimbaud walked throughout his life. Verlaine called him ‘the man with soles of wind’. I can’t give you an address to reply to this, for I don’t know personally where I may find myself dragged next, or by what routes, on the way to where, or why, or how! In this extract, Gros discusses Rimbaud's famous teenage treks across Paris and the influence work had on the great poet. Now out in paperback, this book features on our Guide to Political Walking - all the books featured are 50% off until Friday 1st May! Mixing fascinating vignettes on famous walkers (from Kant's regular-as-clockwork rambles about Königsberg to Neitzsche's mountain trails) and the author's own meditations on walking, A Philosophy of Walking is an entertaining and insightful manifesto for putting one foot in front of the other. As part of our week of walking we bring you an exclusive extract from Frédéric Gros' celebrated A Philosophy of Walking.
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