all of which he gazed feverishly,
for his instinct was awakened, and his vocation stirred within him. He
entered a room on the ground-floor, the door of which was half open; and
there he saw a dozen young men drawing from a statue, who at once began
to make fun of him.

"Hi! little one," cried the first to see him, taking the crumbs of his
bread and scattering them at the child.

"Whose child is he?"

"Goodness, how ugly!"

For a quarter of an hour Joseph stood still and bore the brunt of
much teasing in the atelier of the great sculptor, Chaudet. But after
laughing at him for a time, the pupils were struck with his persistency
and with the expression of his face. They asked him what he wanted.
Joseph answered that he wished to know how to draw; thereupon they all
encouraged him. Won by such friendliness, the child told them he was
Madame Bridau's son.

"Oh! if you are Madame Bridau's son," they cried, from all parts of the
room, "you will certainly be a great man. Long live the son of Madame
Bridau! Is your mother pretty? If you are a sample of her, she must be
stylish!"

"Ha! you want to be an artist?" said the eldest pupil, coming up to
Joseph, "but don't you know that that requires pluck; you'll have to
bear all sorts of trials,--yes, trials,--enough to break your legs and
arms and soul and body. All the fellows you see here have gone through
regular ordeals. That one, for instance, he went seven days without
eating! Let me see, now, if you can be an artist."

He took one of the child's arms and stretched it straight up in the air;
then he placed the other arm as if Joseph were in the act of delivering
a blow with his fist.

"Now that's what we call the telegraph trial," said the pupil. "If you
can stand like that, without lowering or changing the position of your
arms for a quarter of an hour, then you'll have proved yourself a plucky
one."

"Courage, little one, courage!" cried all the rest. "You must suffer if
you want to be an artist."

Joseph, with the good faith of his thirteen years, stood motionless for
five minutes, all the pupils gazing solemnly at him.

"There! you are moving," cried one.

"Steady, steady, confound you!" cried another.

"The Emperor Napoleon stood a whole month as you see him there," said a
third, pointing to the fine statue by Chaudet, which was in the room.

That statue, which represents the Emperor standing with the Imperial
sceptre in his hand, was torn down in 1814