Literary studies had little interest for him, while on the contrary he had a strong liking for mathematics.
At one time when he was leaving the fourth form he thought of preparing for the examination for St. Cyr. This is not surprising in a department essentially military, whose remarkable men have all been generals or marshals; but this fancy, in which he was led more by imitation of others than by his own true calling, soon passed away, and during his last years at college his thoughts were constantly turned towards drawing, and when his course of philosophy came to an end, he made known to his parents his wish to go to Paris to study painting.
Great was the astonishment in the home at Damvillers. While recognizing his son’s skill as a draughtsman, Father Bastien persisted in declaring that painting was not a career—nothing certain, a long and costly apprenticeship, and then ten chances of failure to one of success. Let us talk rather of an honourable appointment in the administration of the state, where one is sure to get one’s pay every month, with a prospect of a provision for one’s old age!
They held a family council. The grandfather considered the adventure hazardous and shook his head; the mother was frightened above all at the dangers of Paris and the life of privation to be undergone there, but, conquered at last by the persistency of her son, she murmured timidly, “Yet, if Jules wishes it!…”
A way was found for settling everything. A friend of the family, who held a superior employment in the Central Postal Administration, advised Jules to go up for examination for admission into that department, promising him that on his being received, he would have him called to Paris, when it could be arranged for him to study at the École des Beaux Arts in the hours that were free from his postal service. They took this advice; Bastien passed the examination, was named supernumerary, and set out for Paris about the end of 1867.
He divided his time between his postal duties and his studies in the School. This could only be done under great disadvantages. The requirements of his position in the Post Office made consecutive and serious study very difficult.
By the end of six months he was brought to the conclusion that this double work was impossible; that he must choose between the Office and the School. He did not hesitate; he gave up the Post Office, and, furnished with a letter from M. Bouguereau, he entered the Cabanel studio after having been received in the School with the number one.
“All beginnings are painful,” says Goethe. Bastien-Lepage had a harsh experience of this. He had burnt his ships in leaving the Post Office, and he found himself alone in Paris with very limited means of existence.
At Damvillers there was more self-denial. The mother, always valiant, herself went to work in the fields, that she might have something to add to the little sum sent every month to the young painter. The Council General of the Meuse had voted him an allowance of, I believe, six hundred francs; all this together scarcely furnished him with bed and board.
But Jules was endowed with a robust faith, a firm will, a never-failing cheerfulness, and the magical power of these three enabled him to endure bravely the many trials of the years of his apprenticeship.