One fine morning his landladies, devout and aged spinsters, made themselves the instruments of the spite of his enemies, and abruptly gave him notice to quit. he had to leave before the end of the month, for, simple and confident as usual, he had obtained neither a lease nor the least written agreement. At this moment he was so poor that he had not even the money to meet the expenses of his removal. The times were troublous: the great war had commenced, and Paris being invested he could no longer obtain the small earnings which his textbooks were beginning to yield him, and which had for some time been increasing his modest earnings. On the other hand, having always lived far from all society, he had not at Avignon a single relation who could assist him, and he could neither obtain credit nor find any one to extricate him from his embarrassments and save him from the extremity of need with which he was threatened. He thought of Mill, and in this difficult juncture it was Mill who saved him. The philosopher was then in England; he was for the time being a member of the House of Commons, and he used to vary his life at Avignon by a few weeks' sojourn in London. His reply, however, was not long in coming: almost immediately he sent help; a sum of some 120 pounds sterling, which fell like manna into the hands of Fabre; and he did not, in exchange, demand the slightest security for this advance. Then, filled with disgust, the "irregular person" shook off the yoke and retired to Orange. At first he took shelter where he could, anxious only to avoid as far as possible any contact with his fellow-men; then, having finally discovered a dwelling altogether in conformity with his tastes, he moved to the outskirts of the city, and settled at the edge of the fields, in the middle of a great meadow, in an isolated house, pleasant and commodious, connected with the road to Camaret by a superb avenue of tall and handsome plane-trees. This hermitage in some respects recalled that of Mill in the outskirts of Avignon; and thence his eyes, embracing a vast horizon, from the pediment of the ancient theatre to the hills of Sérignan, could already distinguish the promised land. CHAPTER 5. A GREAT TEACHER. It was in 1871. Fabre had lived twenty years at Avignon. This date constitutes an important landmark in his career, since it marks the precise moment of his final rupture with the University. At this time the preoccupations of material life were more pressing than ever, and it was then that he devoted himself entirely and with perseverance to the writing of those admirable works of introduction and initiation, in which he applied himself to rendering science accessible to the youngest minds, and employed all his profound knowledge to the thorough teaching of its elements and its eternal laws.