When Thiers had finished his school course his grandmother mortgaged her house to supply funds for his entrance into the college at Aix.  He could not enter the army on account of his size, and he aspired to the Bar.  His family was very poor at that period.  Thiers largely supported himself by painting miniatures, which it is said he did remarkably well.

At Aix he found good literary society and congenial associations.  His friendship with his fellow-historian, Mignet, began in their college days.  At Aix, too, where he was given full liberty to enjoy the Marquis d’Alberta’s gallery of art and wonderful collection of curiosities and bronzes, he acquired his life-long taste for such things.  Aix was indeed a place full of collections,—­of antiquities, of cameos, of marbles, etc.

Thiers’ first literary success was the winning a prize at Nimes for a monograph on Vauvenargues, a moralist of the eighteenth century, called by Voltaire the master-mind of his period.  He won this prize under remarkable circumstances.  The commission to award it was composed, largely of Royalists, who did not like to assign it to a competitor, who, if not a Republican, was at least a Bonapartist.  Thiers had read passages from his essay to friends, and the commissioners were aware of its authorship.  They therefore postponed their decision.  Meantime Thiers wrote another essay on the same subject.  Mignet had it copied, and forwarded to Nimes from Paris, with a new motto.  This essay won the first prize; and Thiers’ other essay won the second prize, greatly to his amusement and delight, and to the annoyance and discomfiture of the Committee of Decision.

With six hundred francs in his pocket ($120), he went up to Paris, making the journey on foot.  Having arrived there, he made his way to his friend Mignet’s garret, weary and footsore, carrying his bundle in his hand.  Mignet was not at home; but in the opposite chamber, which Thiers entered to make inquiries for his friend, was a gay circle of Bohemians, who were enjoying a revel.  The traveller who broke in upon their mirth is thus described:—­

“He wore a coat that had been green, and was faded to yellow, tight buff trousers too short to cover his ankles, and dusty, and glossy from long use, a pair of clumsy blucher boots, and a hat worthy of a place in the cabinet of an antiquary.  His face was tanned a deep brown, and a pair of brass-rimmed spectacles covered half his face.”

That was about 1821.  Thiers was then not a profound politician, nor was he very clear as to theories about republicanism; but he was an enthusiast for Napoleon, an enthusiast for France.  He employed his leisure in making notes in the public libraries on the events between 1788 and 1799,—­the year of the 18th Brumaire.  His future History of the Revolution, Consulate, and Empire began, unconsciously to himself, to grow under his hand.  He had hoped to be called to the Bar in Paris; but as his want of height had