During all of the sleepless night which followed, Francois was revolving his hidden projects of independence, and at gray dawn, confiding his purpose only to his brother, and bidding him tell his mother, when she awoke, that he would soon be back with money to buy bread for them, the child stole forth to seek his fortune in the great dreary world of Paris.

He wandered about all day, and at night, hungry and weary, entered a jeweler’s shop in the Palais Royal, kept by an old woman, to whom he appealed for employment—­vainly at first.  Finally, however, she consented to engage him as a drudge and errand boy, allowed him to sleep in an armoire over the door, and gave him four pounds of bread a week in lieu of wages.  Four pounds of bread a week!  The allowance appeared munificent, and he accepted the offer with gratitude.  A brief experience dispelled his illusions.  He was always weary and always hungry.  After a few weeks’ trial, he left his first benefactress and secured some kind of employment at five sous a day, out of which he contrived to save two.  In two weeks he had saved nearly a franc and a half for his dear mother.  One day, while executing a commission for his employer, he found his little brother alone in the street crying bitterly.

“How is dear mamma?” was his first question.

“Dead, and carried away by ugly men.”

The winter of 1821 was unusually severe for Paris.  One night Delsarte and his brother fell asleep in each other’s arms in the wretched loft they occupied; but when the former opened his eyes to the morning’s light he was holding a corpse to his heart.  The little boy had perished of cold and starvation.  Almost mad with terror and grief, the survivor rushed into the streets to summon the neighbors.

The next day a little hatless boy, in rags and nearly barefooted, followed two men bearing a small pine coffin which they deposited in the fosse commune of Pere la Chaise.

After seeing the grave covered, Delsarte left the cemetery and wandered wearily through the snow, now utterly alone in the world, across the plain of St. Denis.  Overcome by cold, hunger, and grief, he sank to the ground, and then, before he lost consciousness, a strain of music, real or imaginary, met his ear and charmed him to a forgetfulness of misery, bereavement, all the evils that environed him.  It was the first awakening of his artist soul, and to this day Delsarte believes that it was no earthly music that he heard.

Rousing himself from a sort of stupor into which he had fallen, he saw a chiffonnier bending over him.  The man had for a moment mistaken the prostrate form for a bundle of rags; but taking pity on the half-frozen lad, he placed him in his basket and carried him to his miserable home.  And so the future artist commenced his professional career as a Parisian rag-picker.