Jules Laforgue was born in Montevideo on 16 August 1860. He returned to France at the age of six. After failing his baccalaureate, he worked as a copy boy for Charles Ephrussi, the director of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, wrote articles for several small magazines and corresponded with Gustave Kahn. In December 1881, Laforgue was offered a position as editor to Empress Augusta, the grandmother of the future Wilhelm II. He accompanied her to Baden, Koblenz and Helsingör until the poet, suffering from tuberculosis, left Berlin. Shortly before, he had met a young Englishwoman, Leah Lee, whom he married on 31 December 1886. The couple moved to Paris, where he died in 1887 at the age of 27. Laforgue is regarded as one of the inventors of free verse, combining melancholy, humour and linguistic familiarity with a pessimistic view of the world.