At any other time Chaudet would have laughed; but now, as he heard the mother bewailing the destiny he had opened to her child, abusing art, and insisting that Joseph should no longer be allowed to enter the atelier, he burst into a holy wrath.
"I was under obligations to your deceased husband, I wished to help his son, to watch his first steps in the noblest of all careers," he cried.
"Yes, madame, learn, if you do not know it, that a great artist is a king, and more than a king; he is happier, he is independent, he lives as he likes, he reigns in the world of fancy.

Your son has a glorious future before him.

Faculties like his are rare; they are only disclosed at his age in such beings as the Giottos, Raphaels, Titians, Rubens, Murillos,--for, in my opinion, he will make a better painter than sculptor.

God of heaven! if I had such a son, I should be as happy as the Emperor is to have given himself the King of Rome.

Well, you are mistress of your child's fate.