Charlemagne, for four hours every day.

Thus, while yet a child, without discipline or the friendly instruction
that wisdom might have lent, he was launched on the tossing tide of
commercial life.

His "Hercules" was immediately published and made a most decided hit--a
palpable hit. Paris wanted more, and Philipon wished to supply the
demand. The new artist's pictures in the "Journal pour Rire" boomed the
circulation, and more illustrations were in demand. Philipon suggested
that the four hours a day at school was unnecessary--Gustave knew more
already than the teachers.

Gustave agreed with him, and his pay was doubled. More work rushed in,
and Gustave illustrated serial after serial with ease and surety, giving
to every picture a wildness and weirdness and awful comicality. The work
was unlike anything ever before seen in Paris: every one was saying,
"What next!" and to add to the interest, Philipon, from time to time,
wrote articles for various publications concerning "the child
illustrator" and "the artistic prodigy of the 'Journal pour Rire.'"

With such an entree into life, how was it possible that he should ever
become a master? His advantages were his disadvantages, and all his
faults sprang naturally as a result of his marvelous genius. He was the
victim of facility.

Everything in this world happens because something else has happened
before. Had the thing that happened first been different, the thing that
followed would not be what it is.