But to return to what is more generally alluded to as the _premier pas_--that first success which starts the aspirant on his road to fortune or to fame. It is the barrister and the physician who, amongst all professional men, have most frequently to record some happy chance or adventure that came to the aid of their skill, knowledge, and industry; and of the first brief, or of the first patient, the history is not unfrequently told with singular delight. The story we have to tell, and to which the above remarks and anecdotes may be considered by the reader, if he will, as a sort of preamble, regards the _first patient_ of one who, commencing under great difficulties, rose ultimately to the head of his profession. It belongs to both those classes which, we observed in the commencement, are often mingled indiscriminately together. It has in it something of the marvellous, and yet afforded but a fair opening to genuine talent; it was a first step which the fairies presided over, and yet it was a step on the firm earth, and the first of a series which only true genius and worth could have completed. We are fortunate here in having the words before us of the French author from whom we quote, and we have but to render the anecdote--biography, or romance, whichever it may be--in whatever of the lively style of M. Felix Tournachon our pen can catch, or, under the necessity we are to abridge, we can hope to transfer to our pages. THE FIRST PATIENT ...He was not then the great doctor that you know him now. At that time he was neither officer of the Legion of Honour, nor professor of the Faculty of Paris. Hardly was he known to some few companions of his studies. The horses that drew his carriage were not then born; the pole of his landau was flourishing green in the forest. He had obtained his title of physician, and lived in a poor garret--as one says--as if there were any garrets that are rich; and to accomplish this miserable result, to have his painted bed-stead, his table of sham mahogany, two chairs wretchedly stuffed, and his books--what efforts had it not cost him! He was so poor! Have you ever known any of these indefatigable young students, born in the humblest ranks, who spend upon their arid labour their ten, their twenty best years of life, without a thought or a care for the pleasures of their age or the passing day?--youthful stoics who march with firm step, and alone, towards an end which, alas! all do not attain!