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CHAPTER II.
HE STARTS IN LIFE.
His father destined him for the bar, and with that prospect he was set for three years to study law. He found the subject, or the mode of teaching it, entirely distasteful. "What most strengthened his inclination for poetry was his disgust at the mode in which jurisprudence was taught in the law schools, to which, on leaving college, he was sent by his father, then treasurer of the Chamber of Accounts. This alone sufficed to turn him aside to the study of the belles lettres. Young as he was, he was admitted into the society of the Marquis de la Fare, the Duc de Sully, the Abbé Courtin,… and his father thought him lost because he mixed with good society and wrote verses." So he says in the 'Commentaire Historique,' an autobiographical production of his old age. He certainly possessed the most remarkable qualifications for social success. His readiness in the use of his singular mental endowments, his wit, aptitude of expression, confidence, animation, and good-humoured malice, were all prefaced for success by the charm of his manner. Madame de Genlis (no friendly critic) allows that he alone of the men of his century
