This distinguished French painter was born at Andely, in Normandy, in
1594. He was descended from a noble family, originally of Soissons,
whose fortunes had been ruined in the disastrous civil wars in the time
of Charles IX. and Henry III. His father, Jean Poussin, after serving
in the army of Henry IV., settled on a small paternal inheritance at
Andely, where he cultivated a taste for literature and the sciences, and
instructed his son in the same. Young Poussin had already distinguished
himself for the solidity of his judgment, and his progress in letters,
when a natural fondness for drawing, developed by an acquaintance he had
formed with Quintin Varin, an artist of some eminence, induced him to
solict the permission of his father to adopt painting as a profession.