Henri Rousseau was born in Laval, France in 1844 into the family of a plumber; he was forced to work there as a small boy.
He attended Laval High School as a day student and then as a boarder,
after his father became a debtor and his parents had to leave the town
upon the seizure of their house. He was mediocre in some subjects at the
high school but won prizes for drawing and music.
He worked for a lawyer and studied law, but "attempted a small perjury and sought refuge in the army,"
serving for four years, starting in 1863. With his father's death,
Rousseau moved to Paris in 1868 to support his widowed mother as a
government employee. In 1868, he married Clémence Boitard, his
landlord's 15 year-old daughter, with whom he had six children (only one
survived). In 1871, he was appointed as a collector of the octroi
of Paris, collecting taxes on goods entering Paris. His wife died in
1888 and he married Josephine Noury in 1898. He started painting
seriously in his early forties, and by age 49 he retired from his job to
work on his art full-time.
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