The Panthéon and the buildings that surround it taught the young Rodin that the public monuments of the style of Louis XV, although colder and stiffer, still offer a certain grandeur by virtue of their beauty of proportion and character. Close beside the somewhat formal solemnity of these buildings, the Gardens of the Luxembourg that invite the passer-by with all their tender, smiling charm, the exquisite parterre, the elegant little pilastered palace, the Medici fountain, whose charming statues pour out their water that murmurs beneath the branches of the trees spread out above like a tent of lacework, taught him the enchantment of the architectural harmonies of the Renaissance, harmonies of chiseled stone, noble shadows, and carpeting flowers. Like all artists, Rodin adores the Luxembourg. More than this, he would not for anything in the world see those statues of the queens of France banished, those enormous stone dolls of a quality, as regards sculpture, little calculated to satisfy lovers of rich modeling. No matter, he loves the gray mass they make under the fragrant summits of the limes and the hawthorns; they are part of the scenery of his youth; he remains faithful to them as to old playthings. Was it not these that he sketched in those first attempts of his? His aptitude quickly revealed itself. This man, whom ignorant critics were to reproach one day with not knowing how to draw, handled the pencil from his earliest childhood. His mother bought her provisions from a grocer in the neighborhood. The grocer wrapped up his rice, vermicelli, and dried prunes in bags made from cut-up illustrated papers and engravings that had been thrown away. Rodin got hold of these bags, and they were his first models. He copied these wretched images passionately. Toward the age of twelve, he was sent to Beauvais, to the house of an uncle who undertook to bring him up. Beauvais and its unfinished cathedral was another silent lesson, never to be forgotten--that cathedral which is nothing but a choir, but how marvelous a choir!