When Henri was ten his parents moved from Saint Leons to the town of Rodez. There he attended a school where he was granted free tuition for rendering certain services in the chapel. Attired in a surplice, red skull-cap, and cassock, he, together with three other boys, performed his services in the chapel, and received instruction of a much more advanced character than he had yet received. Some of the studies he found difficult, and if he had listened to the call of the woods, he would often have played truant, for he was much more interested in the living things he found there than in the dry subjects learned in the school. But he remembered his poor parents at home, and their anxiety to see him make progress, so he stuck to even the most difficult tasks, and his record there was a good one. Soon after this misfortune visited his family, and Henri had to leave school, and for some considerable time he suffered many hardships. He often went without food, and wandered along the highroads, selling lemons at country fairs, and later working at the building of a railway. Just at that time he was fortunate in winning a bursary for the normal school at Avignon, and so ended a period of his life which had been exceedingly dark. During the years he spent at Avignon he pursued his studies with earnest purpose, and acquitted himself with distinction. He gained his college diploma, and was appointed to teach in a school at Carpentras, and after some years of close study he was made Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Ajaccio. During these years Henri Fabre's interest in insects had been steadily increasing. Little creatures that other people thought ugly, he studied and loved. One day a naturalist, who had been attracted to Fabre, was explaining some things to him of unusual interest. Suddenly the naturalist took a pair of scissors and burst open a shell, and then explained to Fabre the anatomy of a snail. That incident opened a new world for Fabre. His interest in insects, which had always been great, became extraordinary. No longer was he content to study the outward form of insects, but he dissected and thoroughly examined all that came within his range. Often late at night, or again early in the morning, when other people were in their beds, he searched the country lanes and pools for specimens of insects, and then studied them closely to find out their habits of life.