Hilaire-Germain- was born on July 19, 1834, at 8 rue Saint-George's in Paris. His father, Auguste, a banker, was French, and his mother, Célestine, an American from New Orleans. The family name "Degas" had been changed to "De Gas" by some family members in Naples and France in order to sound more aristocratic; the preposition indicated a name derived from land holdings. Degas went back to using the original spelling sometime after 1870, and that is how we spell his name today. He was destined for a law career, but instead entered the Ecole de ....