The next day the child stood at the window watching the pupils as they entered the building by the door on the rue Mazarin; then he ran downstairs and slipped furtively into the long courtyard of the Institute, full of statues, busts, half-finished marbles, plasters, and baked clays; at all of which he gazed feverishly, for his instinct was awakened, and his vocation stirred within him.

He entered a room on the ground-floor, the door of which was half open; and there he saw a dozen young men drawing from a statue, who at once began to make fun of him.
"Hi! little one," cried the first to see him, taking the crumbs of his bread and scattering them at the child.
"Whose child is he ?" "Goodness, how ugly!" For a quarter of an hour Joseph stood still and bore the brunt of much teasing in the atelier of the great sculptor, Chaudet.

But after laughing at him for a time, the pupils were struck with his persistency and with the expression of his face.

They asked him what he wanted.
Joseph answered that he wished to know how to draw; thereupon they all encouraged him.

Won by such friendliness, the child told them he was Madame Bridau's son.
"Oh! if you are Madame Bridau's son," they cried, from all parts of the room, "you will certainly be a great man.