In Paris in 1872 he published his first poem, "Sonnet of Summer," and he discovered the work of poets Paul Verlaine and the teenage prodigy Arthur Rimbaud.

Nouveau travelled to Belgium and the Netherlands, and in 1875 in Brussels he received from Verlaine the manuscript of Rimbaud's Illuminations.

[2] After his mental breakdown, Nouveau voluntarily embarked upon a life of poverty, modelling himself after Saint Benoît-Joseph Labre.

He travelled to Rome and made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela before returning to the village of his birth in 1911, where he died in 1920.

"[4] The rue Germain Nouveau in Aix-en-Provence, Fréjus, Rousset and Saint-Denis are named after him.