LA BOUZOLE. Yes, there are. Those who are not needy or who have no ambitions. Yes, there are obscure persons who devote their whole lives to their professions and who never ask for anything for themselves. But you can take my word for it that they are the exceptions, and that our Court of Mauleon, which you yourself have seen, represents about the average of our judicial morality. I exaggerate, you think? Well! Let us suppose that in all France there are only fifty Courts like this. Suppose there are only twenty--suppose there is only one. It is still one too many! Why, my young friend, what sort of an idea have you got of the magistracy? ARDEUIL. It frightens me. LA BOUZOLE. You are speaking seriously? ARDEUIL. Certainly. LA BOUZOLE. Then why did you become a substitute? ARDEUIL. Through no choice of my own! My people pushed me into the profession. 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? MADAME VAGRET [_after reading the note_] He isn't coming. BUNERAT. I hardly expected him. MADAME VAGRET. A nervous headache he says. He left by the 6:49 train. MOUZON. That's significant! MADAME BUNERAT. It would be impossible to mark his disapproval more clearly. BUNERAT. Three acquittals too! MADAME BUNERAT. If it had been a question of celebrated pleaders! But newly fledged advocates! BUNERAT. Nobodies! MADAME VAGRET [_to her daughter_] My poor child! What will his report be like? BERTHA. What report? MADAME VAGRET. Don't you know? At the close of each session the President submits a report to the Minister--Ah, my dear Madame Bunerat! [_The three women seat themselves at the back of the stage_] MOUZON. Three acquittals--and the Irissary murder. A deplorable record! A pretty pickle we're in.