He finished the Lycée with high marks in classical languages and in 1820 he began to study law, planning for a position in the royal administration. In 1822 he passed the legal examinations and received his license to practice law. However, his real passion was for French and foreign literature: In 1820 he translated the works of Ossian, the presumed ancient Gaelic poet, into French. At the beginning of the 1820s he frequented the salon of Juliette Récamier, a venerable figure in the literary and political life of Paris, where he met Chateaubriand and other prominent writers. In 1822, at the salons, he met Henri Beyle, twenty years older, who became one of his closest friends, and later became famous as a novelist under the pen name of Stendhal. He then began to attend the salon of Étienne Delécluze, a painter and art critic, whose members were interested in the new school of Romanticism in art and literature.