“_Upon an incommodious seat Arranged in form of a pagoda Caron presents a magistrate, By his huge wig and linen collar. Each one pleads with might and main, Before that judge inexorable That nothing will appease, Whose only pleasure is to rain Upon his clients ever pleading Blows of fist and tongs and shovel; And the hearing never ends, Till wigs and bonnets roll away In dire confusion and disorder._” But it must not be thought that the elder Caron approved of too much levity. Although he was himself witty and gifted with a keen literary and artistic sense, he was above all a serious man with an earnest purpose in life. He was descended from Huguenot ancestors who had managed to live in France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, although they no longer possessed a legal existence. Their religious exercises were performed in caves or dark woods or in some desert spot. Here their marriages were solemnized by wandering ministers. The grandparents of Pierre-August, Daniel Caron and Marie Fortain, had been thus united, but their son, André-Charles Caron, shortly before his marriage with Louise Picheon in 1722, abjured his faith and joined himself to the Catholic Church. He retained, however, his Calvinistic character. André-Charles Caron, like his father, was a watchmaker by profession. He was one of those exquisitely skilled French workmen who had done so much for the advancement of science in their own country, and who, when driven into exile, made the fortune of the people among whom they sought refuge, notably the Swiss. Not content with the exercise of his profession alone, the penetrating mind of André-Charles Caron led him into extensive scientific investigations so that he came to be looked upon as an authority in many branches of mechanics. At ten years of age the young Pierre-August was sent by his father to a professional school at Alfort, where he learned the rudiments of Latin, but three years later his father brought him home intent on his becoming a watchmaker. In the years that followed there was a period of stress and storm during which father and son wrestled for mastery. Always when the latter worked he showed a dexterity of touch, an ingenuity of invention which astonished the father; but, on the other hand, his escapades away from home were the despair of the stern watchmaker. The young Caron, full of wit, of song, skillful in tricks and gay of humor, attracted a following of youths whose tendencies were toward a loose life and low morals.