Social inequalities were not noticeable among schoolmates; but in 1821, his studies being ended, Godefroid, who was then with a notary, became aware of the distance that separated him from those with whom he had hitherto lived on familiar terms.
Obliged to go through the law school, he there found himself among a crowd of the sons of the bourgeoisie, who, without fortunes to inherit or hereditary distinctions, could look only to their own personal merits or to persistent toil.The hopes that his father and mother, then retired from business, placed upon him stimulated the youth's vanity without exciting his pride.His parents lived simply, like the thrifty Dutch, spending only one fourth of an income of twelve thousand francs.They intended their savings, together with half their capital, for the purchase of a notary's practice for their son.
Subjected to the rule of this domestic economy, Godefroid found his immediate state so disproportioned to the visions of himself and his parents, that he grew discouraged.In some feeble natures discouragement turns to envy; others, in whom necessity, will, reflection, stand in place of talent, march straight and resolutely in the path traced out for bourgeois ambitions.Godefroid, on the contrary, revolted, wished to shine, tried several brilliant ways, and blinded his eyes.He endeavored to succeed; but all his efforts ended in proving the fact of his own impotence.Admitting at last the inequality that existed between his desires and his capacities, he began to hate all social supremacies, became a Liberal, and attempted to reach celebrity by writing a book; but he learned, to his cost, to regard talent as he did nobility.Having tried the law, the notariat, and literature, without distinguishing himself in any way, his mind now turned to the magistracy.