It was with a saddened heart that he found himself thus compelled to forego long cherished hopes of usefulness.  With that glowing imagination which characterized him even in old age, he had looked forward to the time when, as the curate of some retired parish, he might encourage the devout, reprove and control the erring, and, by his example, counsel, and prayers, so mould and influence the little community, that it should seem another Eden.  But an overruling Providence had reserved for him a larger field of usefulness, a more extended mission of mercy, and it was through the path of trial that he was to be led to it.

Regarding it as his duty to employ his time, he at length determined to enter the legal profession.  He passed with rapidity through the preliminary course of study, and was admitted to the bar.  The practice of the law was not, at that time, in France, nor is it, indeed, now, invested with the high character attaching to it in England.  Its codes and rules bore the impress of a barbarous age; and among its practitioners, fraud, artifice, and chicanery were the rule, and honesty the rare and generally unfortunate exception.

For such a profession the pure-minded De l’Epee found himself entirely unfitted, and, abandoning it with loathing, his eyes and heart were again directed toward the profession of his choice, and, this time, apparently not in vain.  His early friend, M. de Bossuet, had been elevated to the see of Troyes, and, knowing his piety and zeal, offered him a canonry in his cathedral, and admitted him to priest’s orders.  The desire of his heart was now gratified, and he entered upon his new duties with the utmost ardor.  “In all the diocese of Troyes,” says one of his contemporaries, “there was not so faithful a priest.”

But his hopes were soon to be blasted.  Monseigneur de Bossuet died, and, as the Jansenist controversy was at its height, his old enemies, the Jesuits, exerted their influence with the Archbishop of Paris, and procured an interdict, prohibiting him from ever again exercising the functions of the priesthood.

A severer blow could scarcely have fallen upon him.  He sought not for honor, he asked not for fame or worldly renown; he had only desired to be useful, to do good to his fellow-men; and now, just as his hopes were budding into fruition, just as some results of his faithful labors were beginning to appear, all were cut off by the keen breath of adversity.

It was while suffering from depression, at his unjust exclusion from the duties of his calling, that his attention was first directed to the unfortunate class to whom he was to be the future evangelist, or bringer of good tidings.  Bebian thus relates the incident which led him to undertake the instruction of the deaf and dumb:—­