“Crimen amoris”, a late response to “Sœurs de charité”?

The exchanges between Verlaine and Rimbaud have rarely been studied on a textual level. Focusing on a key notion for Rimbaud, charity, this article interprets “Crimen amoris”, sent to Rimbaud from Verlaine when imprisoned in 1873, as a response to “Sœurs de charité”, dated June 1871 on Verlaine’s copy. In it, the ideal love that Rimbaud searched for by drawing on the notion of charity is criticized as “an egoism that lies to itself”.