Godeschal preached by example.  If he professed the strictest principles of honor, discretion, and honesty, he practised them without assumption, as he walked, as he breathed; such action was the natural play of his soul, as walking and breathing were the natural play of his organs.  Eighteen months after Oscar’s installation into the office, the second clerk was, for the second time, slightly wrong in his accounts, which were comparatively unimportant.  Godeschal said to him in presence of all the other clerks: 

“My dear Gaudet, go away from here of your own free will, that it may not be said that Monsieur Desroches has dismissed you.  You have been careless or absent-minded, and neither of those defects can pass here.  The master shall know nothing about the matter; that is all that I can do for a comrade.”

At twenty years of age, Oscar became third clerk in the office.  Though he earned no salary, he was lodged and fed, for he did the work of the second clerk.  Desroches employed two chief clerks, and the work of the second was unremitting toil.  By the end of his second year in the law-school Oscar knew more than most licensed graduates; he did the work at the Palais intelligently, and argued some cases in chambers.  Godeschal and Desroches were satisfied with him.  And yet, though he now seemed a sensible man, he showed, from time to time, a hankering after pleasure and a desire to shine, repressed, though it was, by the stern discipline and continual toil of his life.

Moreau, satisfied with Oscar’s progress, relaxed, in some degree, his watchfulness; and when, in July, 1825, Oscar passed his examinations with a spotless record, the land-agent gave him the money to dress himself elegantly.  Madame Clapart, proud and happy in her son, prepared the outfit splendidly for the rising lawyer.

In the month of November, when the courts reopened, Oscar Husson occupied the chamber of the second clerk, whose work he now did wholly.  He had a salary of eight hundred francs with board and lodging.  Consequently, uncle Cardot, who went privately to Desroches and made inquiries about his nephew, promised Madame Clapart to be on the lookout for a practice for Oscar, if he continued to do as well in the future.

In spite of these virtuous appearances, Oscar Husson was undergoing a great strife in his inmost being.  At times he thought of quitting a life so directly against his tastes and his nature.  He felt that galley-slaves were happier than he.  Galled by the collar of this iron system, wild desires seized him to fly when he compared himself in the street with the well-dressed young men whom he met.  Sometimes he was driven by a sort of madness towards women; then, again, he resigned himself, but only to fall into a deeper disgust for life.  Impelled by the example of Godeschal, he was forced, rather than led of himself, to remain in that rugged way.