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country.
    Émile was eligible, by virtue of his good schoolwork, to apply to the École polytechnique, which had been founded by Napoleon. Graduating from that
grande école
could earn him a place in the army, as an officer or an engineer. However, after passing the written exam, Émile failed the oral one. During this part of the test, another student threw some sort of stink bomb into the hall. Émile later claimed that the professor had taken revenge on him for the incident by giving him an extraordinarily difficult question or an unjustifiably low grade. The comte Ogier d'lvry, son-in-law of the marquise de Chamborant, an
homme de lettres
and an army officer who considered Émile "a charming boy, something of a dreamer," urged his distant relative to try again for the École polytechnique. His own excellent situation in the army might later assist Émile. But the young man refused any help.
    At seventeen, Émile needed a job, since the auberge in Brévannes brought in barely enough money to keep the Henry family afloat. In 1889, Émile's uncle Jean Bordenave, a civil engineer, employed Émile, who worked hard and took on difficult tasks, sometimes even stepping in for his uncle. Bordenave soon gave him a raise, then proposed that Émile accompany him to Venice. With several new patents, the engineer had signed a contract to provide a new water system for the city. Émile accepted the offer.
    On December 28,1889, Émile wrote his chemistry professor at J.-B. Say, Monsieur Philippe, from Venice, to apologize for having left school so abruptly in November without saying goodbye. All was going well for him in Italy. He was doing a bit of everything, sketching proposed projects, penning correspondence, and calculating the resistance of building materials. He was extremely happy working for his uncle, confidently adding, "I hope to build a good future, if not a brilliant one at least something sure, working on such new, wonderful projects, which will surely be part of great developments in the future." His uncle had received offers of contracts in Cayenne in French Guiana as well as Algeria, Belgium, Switzerland, and Russia to build canals or reservoirs for petroleum. Émile hoped that soon he would be in one of "these diverse countries" and that he would be most happy to see himself ultimately working in a branch of the civil engineering corps (Ponts-et-Chaussées), which looked after the national road system.
    The possibility of reapplying to the École polytechnique remained, but Émile confessed to Monsieur Philippe that he was worried about what kind of future this could offer him, even if he was admitted. Now he added, "My tastes and my too limited financial situation keep me from any kind of military career. I found myself after leaving school without a position, with considerable general knowledge, but without really having a profession." He thanked Philippe for all his "good lessons" and frank conversations and asked him to promise his friends at the school that he would never forget them and would visit them upon his return.
    In September 1890 the postman brought three letters from Émile to Brévannes. They had been penned on August 24 and September 1 at the Albergo della Luna in Mestre, outside Venice. He was happy to have received letters from both of his brothers four days earlier, bringing welcome news of good health, his older brother Fortuné's new job, and the "dazzling successes of our
picciolo
Jules" in school. After so long without word from his family, Émile was relieved. Émile had written a letter of birthday greetings to Fortuné in care of his "political friends" (Fortuné had adopted the left-wing politics of their father), but he suspected that it had never arrived. He hoped to return to France very soon and surprise his family. In September they would see what "passes for my head" on the train, or on the road near his mother's auberge.
    In his letter to Jules, after trying to imagine the surprise of