(click here to see C.B.'s birth home as it is today)
Charles was an only child, born to Maurice and Louise Boyer. His father Maurice was a self-educated man, a merchant who dealt in farming implements and coal; his mother Louise was an amateur musician. Her son would recall: "When I was a little boy, my mother seemed always to be singing arias from the grand opera, and I had the distinct impression that no one enjoyed hearing her."
Charles was a precocious child, and something of an introvert. "I did not dislike other children but I had more to say to adults. I was a very old man with a strong resemblance to a little boy, with whom other children had difficulty in forming friendships."
When Charles was ten years old, his father died suddenly of a stroke. His mother Louise sold the family business and concentrated on raising her son as a young gentleman of leisure.
