He can talk well, though; and if we could make him a barrister he might plead cases that were carefully prepared for him." In the month of November, 1825, soon after Oscar Husson had taken possession of his new clerkship, and at the moment when he was about to pass his examination for the licentiate's degree, a new clerk arrived to take the place made vacant by Oscar's promotion.
This fourth clerk, named Frederic Marest, intended to enter the magistracy, and was now in his third year at the law school.

He was a fine young man of twenty-three, enriched to the amount of some twelve thousand francs a year by the death of a bachelor uncle, and the son of Madame Marest, widow of the wealthy wood-merchant.

This future magistrate, actuated by a laudable desire to understand his vocation in its smallest details, had put himself in Desroches' office for the purpose of studying legal procedure, and of training himself to take a place as head-clerk in two years.

He hoped to do his "stage" (the period between the admission as licentiate and the call to the bar) in Paris, in order to be fully prepared for the functions of a post which would surely not be refused to a rich young man.

To see himself, by the time he was thirty, "procureur du roi" in any court, no matter where, was his sole ambition.