The father's ambition was to make his son a government clerk.

At the beginning of this century the army presented too many posts not to leave various vacancies in the government offices.
A deficiency of minor officials enabled old Pere Thuillier to hoist his son upon the lowest step of the bureaucratic hierarchy.

The old man died in 1814, leaving Jerome on the point of becoming sub-director, but with no other fortune than that prospect.

The worthy Thuillier and his wife (who died in 1810) had retired from active service in 1806, with a pension as their only means of support; having spent what property they had in giving Jerome the education required in these days, and in supporting both him and his sister.
The influence of the Restoration on the bureaucracy is well known.

From the forty and one suppressed departments a crowd of honorable employees returned to Paris with nothing to do, and clamorous for places inferior to those they had lately occupied.