La Bouzole. Yes. People look on the magistracy as a career. That is to say, from the moment you enter it you have only one object—to get on. [A pause]
Ardeuil. Yet it would be a noble thing—to dispense justice tempered with mercy.
La Bouzole. Yes—it should be. [A pause] Do you want the advice of a man who has for forty years been a judge of the third class?
Ardeuil. I should value it.
La Bouzole. Send in your resignation. You have mistaken your vocation. You wear the wrong robe. The man who attempts to put into practice the ideas you have expressed must wear the priest's cassock.
Ardeuil [as though to himself] Yes—but for that one must have a simple heart—a heart open to faith.
Bunerat [who is with the others] If only we had the luck to have a deputy of the department for Keeper of the Seals! Just for a week!
La Bouzole [to Ardeuil] There, my boy, that's the sort of thing one has to think about.
The Manservant [entering] From his Honor the President of Assizes. [He gives Vagret a letter]
Vagret. He isn't coming?