Yeah, I think she loved him as well. Otherwise she wouldn't put up with him for so long. I have no doubts though, that HE didn't love her, or their baby. He punched the poor little guy for God's sake! As for the beginning, it may have been infatuation, or lust, combined with her being the means of helping him out in his situation.

I think she loved him, but just didn't like his friends :P.
-Amanda
"She will remember your heart when men are fairy tales in storybooks written by rabbits"

I do believe that Verlaine loved her when he married her, as he wrote many beautiful love poems to her when they were engaged. However, he seems to have preferred boys to women, and his love, or perhaps infatiaton, for Mathilde was rather short-lived. But whether
she
loved
him
, that's another question

Ok, thanks!
-Amanda
"She will remember your heart when men are fairy tales in storybooks written by rabbits"

I believe she was 18 when the baby was born. She was a couple of years older than Arthur and long survived both him and her husband.
It was supposedly a love match. Verlaine was 26 at the time of his marriage and 28 when he met Rimbaud.
She may have loved him, but in a very, very conventional way. She was a very conventionl girl from a very stodgy, upper middle class, pious family. That conventionality, as well as his many repressed needs, drove Verlaine to drink.
If the Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard, It can also be like a chicken-pox mark.