Claude Monet was born on 14 November 1840 on the fifth floor of 45 rue Laffitte, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. He was the second son of Claude Adolphe Monet and Louise Justine Aubrée Monet, both of them second-generation Parisians. On 20 May 1841, he was baptized in the local parish church, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, as Oscar-Claude, but his parents called him simply Oscar. (He signed his juvenilia "O. Monet".) Despite being baptized Catholic, Monet later became an atheist. In 1845, his family moved to Le Havre in Normandy. His father wanted him to go into the family's ship-chandling and grocery business, but
Jean Monet (son of Claude Monet) in the country, while Monet tried to obtain monies for survival. However, without money for a medical treatment, Jean became quite ill. After a dramatic period experienced by Camille and Jean, Claude was able to obtain funds for housing for his family in Le Havre. His parents were married on June 28, 1870. When Jean was a young child his mother and father had fled France during the Franco-Prussian War. They returned by the summer of 1872 when Claude painted his five-year-old son on a hobby horse in the garden of the home the family rented in Argenteuil near Paris.