at the age of seven, he was sent to an institution, that of the Abbe
Liautard, to be thrown among children of distinguished families who,
during the Empire, chose this school for the education of their sons
in preference to the lyceums, where religion was too much overlooked.
Social inequalities were not noticeable among schoolmates; but in
1821, his studies being ended, Godefroid, who was then with a notary,
became aware of the distance that separated him from those with whom
he had hitherto lived on familiar terms.

Obliged to go through the law school, he there found himself among a
crowd of the sons of the bourgeoisie, who, without fortunes to inherit
or hereditary distinctions, could look only to their own personal
merits or to persistent toil. The hopes that his father and mother,
then retired from business, placed upon him stimulated the youth's
vanity without exciting his pride. His parents lived simply, like the
thrifty Dutch, spending only one fourth of an income of twelve
thousand francs. They intended their savings, together with half their
capital, for the purchase of a notary's practice for their son.
Subjected to the rule of this domestic economy, Godefroid found his
immediate state so disproportioned to the visions of himself and his
parents, that he grew discouraged. In some feeble natures
discouragement turns to envy; others, in whom necessity, will,
reflection, stand in place of talent, march straight and resolutely in
the path traced out for bourgeois ambitions. Godefroid, on the
contrary, revolted, wished to shine, tried several brilliant ways, and
blinded his eyes. He endeavored to succeed; but all his efforts ended
in proving the fact of his own impotence. Admitting at last the
inequality that existed between his desires and his capacities, he
began to hate all social supremacies, became a Liberal, and attempted
to reach celebrity by writing a book; but he learned, to his cost, to