Andre-Marie de Chenier--as he was called until 1790 swept away all ornamental particles--was born amid picturesque surroundings at Constantinople, October 30th, 1762, where his father then held the office of Consul-General. He had married a young Greek girl, a Mademoiselle Santi-l'Homaka, whose family came originally from the island of Cyprus. A Languedocian father, a Cyprian mother, an Oriental birthplace,--it was no wonder that the passionate fire of his blood flamed somewhat too hotly through his verse. Andre was the third of four sons, and four daughters were also born to M. de Chenier. In 1765, when he was but three years old, his father returned to France; but two years afterwards left his native country again to fill a diplomatic position in Morocco, while his wife remained in Paris with their children. Andre seems to have always looked back with pleasure to his Eastern birthplace, and long cherished the hope of revisiting it, but he never got farther on the way than Italy. Madame de Chenier, who was a refined and cultivated woman with much taste for art and literature, gave him his first lessons; but he was soon sent with his brothers to the College of Navarre. There he made many friendships that lasted to the end of his short life, and his school-fellows, some of whom belonged to noble and wealthy families, often took him to spend his holidays at their country-houses. At the age of sixteen he carried off a first prize in rhetoric; and from that time began his apprenticeship to the trade of the Muses, as Ronsard would say, by writing translations of Greek and Latin verse. He does not seem to have been particularly precocious as a poet, and his imitations of Sappho were even then considered rather feeble. His mother's salon was thronged with artists, poets, writers, and men of the world, among whom Andre might have found many indulgent listeners, were it not that his reserve and fastidious taste made him rather chary of exhibiting his youthful efforts. His mind was already full of ambitious projects for future epics, and his leisure was spent very much as his classic models had spent theirs, in light and facile pleasures and loves.