Editing Jules Verne (section)

===Studies in Paris===
In July 1848, Verne left Nantes again for Paris, where his father intended him to finish law studies and take up law as a profession. He obtained permission from his father to rent a furnished apartment at 24 Rue de l'Ancienne-Comédie, which he shared with Édouard Bonamy, another student of Nantes origin.{{sfn|Lottmann|1996|p=24}} (On his 1847 Paris visit, Verne had stayed at 2 Rue Thérèse, the house of his aunt Charuel, on the Butte Saint-Roch.){{sfn|Compère|1997c|p=42}}

Verne arrived in Paris during a time of political upheaval: the [[French Revolution of 1848]]. In February, [[Louis Philippe I]] had been overthrown and had fled; on 24 February, a provisional government of the [[French Second Republic]] took power, but political demonstrations continued, and social tension remained. In June, barricades went up in Paris, and the government sent [[Louis-Eugène Cavaignac]] to crush the insurrection. Verne entered the city shortly before the election of [[Napoleon III|Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte]] as the first president of the Republic, a state of affairs that would last until the [[1851 French coup d'état|French coup of 1851]]. In a letter to his family, Verne described the bombarded state of the city after the recent [[June Days uprising]] but assured them that the anniversary of [[Bastille Day]] had gone by without any significant conflict.{{sfn|Jules-Verne|1976|p=12}}

[[File:Aristide Hignard 1880.jpg|upright|thumb|[[Aristide Hignard]]]]
Verne used his family connections to make an entrance into Paris society. His uncle Francisque de Chatêaubourg introduced him into [[literary salon]]s, and Verne particularly frequented those of Mme de Barrère, a friend of his mother's.{{sfn|Jules-Verne|1976|p=17}} While continuing his law studies, he fed his passion for the theater, writing numerous plays. Verne later recalled: "I was greatly under the influence of [[Victor Hugo]], indeed, very excited by reading and re-reading his works. At that time I could have recited by heart whole pages of ''[[The Hunchback of Notre-Dame|Notre Dame de Paris]]'', but it was his dramatic work that most influenced me."{{sfn|Sherard|1894|loc=§3}} Another source of creative stimulation came from a neighbor: living on the same floor in the Rue de l'Ancienne-Comédie apartment house was a young composer, [[Aristide Hignard]], with whom Verne soon became good friends, and Verne wrote several texts for Hignard to set as [[chanson]]s.{{sfn|Lottmann|1996|p=32}}

During this period, Verne's letters to his parents primarily focused on expenses and on a suddenly appearing series of violent [[abdominal pain|stomach cramps]],{{sfn|Lottmann|1996|p=25}} the first of many he would suffer from during his life. (Modern scholars have hypothesized that he suffered from [[colitis]];{{sfn|Lottmann|1996|p=25}} Verne believed the illness to have been inherited from his mother's side.{{sfn|Dumas|1988|p=372|ps=: "Je suis bien Allotte sous le rapport de l'estomac."}}) Rumors of an outbreak of [[cholera]] in March 1849 exacerbated these medical concerns.{{sfn|Lottmann|1996|p=25}} Yet another health problem would strike in 1851 when Verne suffered the first of four attacks of [[Facial nerve paralysis|facial paralysis]]. These attacks, rather than being [[psychosomatic]], were due to an inflammation in the [[middle ear]], though this cause remained unknown to Verne during his life.{{sfn|Dumas|2000|p=51|ps=: "La paralysie faciale de Jules Verne n'est pas psychosomatique, mais due seulement à une inflammation de l'oreille moyenne dont l'œdème comprime le nerf facial correspondant. Le médiocre chauffage du logement de l'étudiant entraîne la fréquence de ses refroidissements. L'explication de cette infirmité reste ignorée de l'écrivain; il vit dans la permanente inquiétude d'un dérèglement nerveux, aboutissant à la folie."}}

In the same year, Verne was required to enlist in the French army, but the [[sortition]] process spared him, to his great relief. He wrote to his father: "You should already know, dear papa, what I think of the military life, and of these domestic servants in livery. ... You have to abandon all dignity to perform such functions."{{sfn|Lottmann|1996|p=29}} Verne's strong antiwar sentiments, to the dismay of his father, would remain steadfast throughout his life.{{sfn|Lottmann|1996|p=29}}

Though writing profusely and frequenting the salons, Verne diligently pursued his law studies and graduated with a ''licence en droit'' in January 1851.{{sfn|Evans|1988|p=17}}