After its publication, he abandoned
realism and worked in a very different manner. He joined a literary circle that called themselves
Les Hydropathes, founded by
Émile Goudeau, an
anti-clerical group with ties to the
Decadent literary movement. Under their influence, he wrote the poems that made his reputation. In
Les Névroses, with the sub-title
Les Âmes, Les Luxures, Les Refuges, Les Spectres, Les Ténèbres, he showed himself as a disciple of
Charles Baudelaire. He constantly returns in these poems to the physical horrors of death, and is obsessed by unpleasant images. Less outré in sentiment are ''L'Abîme
(1886), La Nature'', and a book of children's verse,
Le Livre de la Nature (1893). He was a musician as well as a poet, and set many of his songs to music. Several evenings a week, Rollinat would appear at the
cabaret Le Chat Noir, and there he would perform his poems with piano accompaniment. His gaunt and pale appearance made his portrait a favourite subject for a number of painters, and the startling subjects of his verses brought him short fame during his lifetime; at the height of his popularity he drew a number of celebrities to the cabaret to see him perform; among them were
Leconte de Lisle and
Oscar Wilde. Rollinat's friend
Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly wrote that "Rollinat might be Baudelaire's superior in the sincerity and depth of his diabolism". On January 19, 1878, Maurice Rollinat married Marie Sérullaz. But dissensions appeared in the couple and they separated in February 1882. In September 1883, Maurice Rollinat left Paris with Cécile Pouettre and settled in Fresselines in Creuse, where they lived for twenty years. Cécile Pouettre died on August 24, 1903. The causes of her death are not known but are certainly linked to the fact that she took morphine injections for her pain, and not to rabies. Maurice Rollinat, probably suffering from colorectal cancer, was transported to the clinic of Doctor Moreau in Ivry near Paris, where he died on October 26, 1903, at the age of 56. He is buried in the Saint-Denis cemetery in Châteauroux. On Rollinat's death,
Auguste Rodin offered the
Fresselines commune a
bas-relief entitled "Poet and the Muse". This sculpture is on display on the wall of the village church at Fresselines. ==Publications==