schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language,
he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a
passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the
prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and
smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the
praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the
services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood,
he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or
pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the
figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he
always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove
the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the
Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college
traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to
the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ
from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too
flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually
had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of
the tabernacle!

"Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a
father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no
obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered
Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging
for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's
intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute
condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him
like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in
one of those works wherein future talent contends with the
effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him