Famous French Authors - Biographical Portraits of Distinguished French Writers #265353

Théophile Gautier, was born at Tarbes, August 31st, 1811. When three years old, he went to live in Paris, we might say he returned there, so much is he a part of Paris. He writes of himself, "I learned to read at the age of five years, and after that time, I could say with Apelles, Nulla dies sine linea. He took his first lessons at the college of Louis le Grand, and ended them as day-pupil at Charlemagne. His father, a very good linguist, assisted him in Latin; but the boy's taste was not for the purely classic authors. Livy and Cicero wearied him; Martial, and Catullus, Apuleius and Petronius, were his delight. So dear to him were these writers of the decadence, that he sought to imitate them in all varieties of metre.