him using a pedal machine as big as a sewing machine.″ In the same year, his father left the household to live with a friend of his wife. Finding themselves without resources, Marguerite set up a boarding house. The house then welcomed young female dancers from the nearby theatre who came to live in the room next to Pierre's. Follain takes pleasure in telling the story of how he spied on them, naked, through a crack in the wall. However, the boarding house was not sufficient to cover the family's needs, so they moved to Paris at the end of 1892. There, Marguerite improvised as a seamstress. Early years in Paris In Paris, Albert Birot, barely sixteen years old, met the sculptor Georges Achard, who introduced him to the École des Beaux-Arts and introduced him to Falguière. Since he wanted to be a painter, Albert-Birot met Gustave Moreau and Gérôme at this time. It is finally sculpture that captures his interest: he leaves the École des Beaux-Arts, works on sculpture in Georges Achard's studio, meets Alfred Boucher. In the latter's studio, an Italian craftsman teaches him how to carve marble. Having received financial support from the city of Angoulême trough a scholarship, he sets up his studio in a cabin on the boulevard du Montparnasse. At the same time, he takes courses at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France, including the philosophy course of Alfred Espinas. He sets up house in 1896 with the sister of the painter , Marguerite, with whom he has four children. He exhibits at the Salon des Artistes Français for the first time in 1900. Seven years later, his sculpture The Widow is purchased by the state for the cemetery of Issy-les-Moulineaux, where it remains today. For food, he sculpts Parisian façades (some of which can be seen around the Champ-de-Mars and in Neuilly-sur-Seine). From 1900, he also worked as a restorer for antique dealer Madame Lelong, a job he kept all his life and which provided the material for his novel Rémy Floche, employé. During the year 1912, he frequented Esperanto circles in Paris and wrote poems in Esperanto. It is perhaps there that he met the musician Germaine de Surville. The same year, he abandoned his children. His daughters entered the Orphanage of the Arts in Courbevoie, and his sons entered the Fraternity of Artists. He married Germaine in 1913. SIC From