French ship Soleil-Royal (1692) French ship Soleil-Royal (1692) The Soleil Royal ("Regal Sun") was a First Rank ship of the line of the French Royal Navy. This ship was originally planned to be a 2nd Rank two-decker to be built at Brest, but - following the loss of fifteen major French warships by Anglo-Dutch attacks at Cherbourg and La Hogue during the first few days of June, 1692 (N.S.) - she was ordered in the same week to be built instead as a First Rank three-decker of 104 guns. On 21 June she was given the name "Foudroyant" to replace the previous ship bearing
Soleil et chair that Rimbaud failed to go beyond the experiments of his predecessors. The fixation on sexuality in this poem is characteristic of much of Rimbaud's oeuvre, and it is moreover the sheer bluntness with which he communicates it that is so shocking, controversial, and typical of him. In what would otherwise seem like an innocent paean for nature, Rimbaud begins the first two lines with a graphic image of the sun essentially ejaculating its light onto the nubile earth. The poem's speaker revels in his position between the lustful relationship of the sun and earth. "Soleil et chair," like some of