ent art, was not without influence
in the moulding of his talent.

His relations with Avet lasted from 1861 to 1864, when his master
quarrelled with him and abruptly dismissed him from his shop. The boy
was already a determined person; he believed that he had suffered an
injustice, and, though Avet went to his parents and tried to induce them
to send him back, he refused to return. A new master was found for him
in the person of a shell-cameo cutter named Jules LeBrethon, and with
him Saint-Gaudens remained three years. During his six years'
apprenticeship under his two masters the youth showed already that
energy and power of will that made him what he was. He meant to be
something more than an artisan, and he spent his evenings in the
classes, first of the Cooper Union, afterward of the National Academy of
Design, in the hard study of drawing, the true foundation of all the
fine arts. It was one of the elements of his superiority in his
profession that he could draw as few sculptors can, and he always felt
that he owed an especial debt to the Cooper Union, which he was glad to
repay when he modelled the statue of its venerable founder. Of the other
institution by whose freely given instruction he had profited, the
National Academy of Design, he became one of the most honored members.
By 1867, when he was nineteen years old, he had saved a little money and
was master of a trade that could be relied on to bring in more, and he
determined to go to Paris and begin the serious study of sculpture. He
worked, for a time, at the Petite Ecole, and entered the studio of
Jouffroy in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1868, remaining until 1870.
During this time, and afterward, he was self-supporting, working half
his time at cameo cutting until his efforts at sculpture on a larger
scale began to bring in an income.

When the Franco-Prussian War broke out Paris ceased to be a place for
the carrying on of the serious study of art, and Saint-Gaudens went to
Rome, where his associates were the French prizemen of the day, of whom
Mercie was one. He remained there until 1874, except for a visit to New
York in the winter of 1872-3 for the purpose of modelling a bust of
Senator Evarts, and one or two other busts, which were put into marble
upon his return to Rome. In those Roman days he executed his first
statue, a "Hiawatha," one of his few studies of the nude, and a
"Silence," a not very characteristic draped figure which yet fills with
so