“He was fifty when he left prison, full of hatred towards society and a determination to be revenged.
“He went to Paris.
“The art which was born with him remained with him, and the love of pleasure.
“He refused to be old, and, with the aid of the art of the chemist and the maker-up, he appeared to the world as a man at least twenty years younger than he was.
“He lived for years in Paris in the Latin Quarter, a notoriously vicious character, yet forgiven for the sake of his genius. His sculptures were marvellous, but his vice and laziness were to match, so he made little profit of his art and did little work.
“His hatred of the rich and well-to-do amounted to a monomania, and he was always searching around for some means by which he might avenge himself upon them.
“To the man who hates a class, an individual of that class will serve as a butt for his revenge.
“One day, walking along a street in Paris, he saw coming towards him what seemed a little old man wearing a pinafore. It was a child wearing a mask.
“The occurrence gave him food for thought. ‘If,’ said he to himself, ‘a man who makes these paper masks for five sous a dozen, can produce an even momentary illusion, what could not a genius do in the same direction were he to give all his mind to the matter?’
“He played with the subject in his mind.