The remains of the famous French poet Arthur Rimbaud will not be removed to the mausoleum of the Panthéon, despite a campaign to honor him as an artist and symbol of gay rights, French President Emmanuel Macron decided.
A petition last year supported by several celebrities and also by the Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, called for Rimbaud to be re-buried alongside his lover and fellow poet Paul Verlaine at the monument in central Paris.
In a letter sent to the descendants of Rimbaud and seen by AFP, Macron said he would respect his wishes for the poet’s remains to remain in his hometown, Charleville-Mézières, in eastern France, where he was buried in 1891.
“I don’t want to go against the wishes of the deceased’s family. Arthur Rimbaud’s remains will not be removed, ”wrote Macron to the family’s lawyer.
The Panthéon is a memorial complex for great national figures in the French history of the world of politics, culture and science. Other notable literary characters buried there include Voltaire, Rousseau, Dumas, Hugo and Malraux.
Only the president can decide on the transfer of the remains to the old church, whose large columns and vaulted ceiling were inspired by the Pantheon in Rome.
Macron used that authority in 2018 to give Simone Veil, a former French minister who survived the Holocaust, the honor of a final resting place at the monument.
Rimbaud and Verlaine are famous for their innovative poetry, but they also became famous for their stormy relationship marked by sex, drugs and problems with the law.
Rimbaud, author of classics like The Drunken Boat and A Season in Hell, embraced drugs and alcohol as a stimulus for his prose and explorations of human consciousness.