Square de la Gare

The square of the station offers on 8600m² natural spaces dedicated to pedestrians. In 1858, the Charleville station was inaugurated, the first station of this line built at the request of the Ardennes industry bosses. In 1866, the city felt the need to embellish the station square and it built a square with some remarkable trees (Gingko biloba, Sequoia ...) and its famous bandstand, immortalized a few years later by the famous poem "A la musique". In this text, the town's enfant terrible, Arthur Rimbaud, depicts in vitriol the good bourgeois society of Charleville, who comes to take the green and listen to "the fifes" of the music of the soldiers of the 91° RI of Mézières. His bronze bust, recently rehabilitated, the third edition of the first monument in homage to the poet in the city, faces that of Gustave Gailly, mayor-deputy-senator-industrialist in Charleville during Rimbaud's lifetime.Recently refurbished in 2010-2011, the square now offers to passers-by as lovers of Rimbaud who came in his footsteps, a poetic milestone with many excerpts from his most famous poems. Another point of interest for this public park is the impressive monument to the Ardennes teachers who died during the First World War.