Editing Louis-Ferdinand Céline (section)

===Early life===
The only child of Fernand Destouches and Marguerite-Louise-Céline Guilloux, he was born Louis Ferdinand Auguste Destouches in 1894 at [[Courbevoie]], just outside Paris in the [[Seine (department)|Seine ''département'']] (now [[Hauts-de-Seine]]). The family came originally from [[Normandy]] on his father's side and [[Brittany]] on his mother's side. His father was a middle manager in an insurance company, and his mother owned a boutique where she sold antique lace.<ref name="ChronoPleiade">Chronology given in the Pléiade edition of his novels, volume I, [[Bibliothèque de la Pléiade]], [[éditions Gallimard]], {{ISBN|978-2-07-011000-1}}, pp. LV-LVI.</ref><ref name="O'Connell14">{{Harvp|O'Connell|1976|p=14}}</ref> In 1905, he was awarded his ''Certificat d'études'', after which he worked as an apprentice and messenger boy in various trades.<ref name="O'Connell14"/>

Between 1908 and 1910, his parents sent him to Germany and England for a year in each country in order to acquire foreign languages for future employment.<ref name="O'Connell14"/> From the time he left school until the age of eighteen Céline worked in various jobs, leaving or losing them after only short periods of time. He worked for silk sellers and jewellers first at eleven, as an errand boy, and later as a salesperson for a local goldsmith. Although he was no longer being formally educated, he bought schoolbooks with the money he earned and studied by himself. It was around this time that Céline vaguely thought of becoming a doctor.<ref>{{Harvp|McCarthy|1976|pp=21-22}}</ref>