His mother was Anna Rácz, the raised daughter of a Hungarian nobleman, György Návay.

Because of his father's early death Temes County took over the costs of the education of the Degré children.

In 1842 he started to work as a jurist in Pest where he got interested in politics and made friends with Lajos Kossuth.

The liberal ideas inflamed his thinking so he joined these political circles and took part on their events where he was asked to hold a welcome speech for Kossuth.

In 1843 he took the attorney's examination and moved to Pozsony (today Bratislava, Slovakia) to work as a royal board notary at the National Assembly of Hungary.