The Modern Regime Volume I Part 18

Thus, there is little or no attendance at most of the courses of lectures; only those on mathematics are followed, particularly on drawing, and especially mechanical and geometrical drawing, probably by the future surveyors and engineers of roads and bridges, by building contractors and a few aspirants to the ecole Polytechnique. As to the other courses, on literature, history, and the moral sciences, as comprehended by the Republic and imposed by it, these obtain not over a thousand auditors in all France; instead of 72,000 pupils, only 7000 or 8000 seek superior education, while six out of seven, instead of seeking self-culture, simply prepare themselves for some practical pursuit.[3170]

It is much worse with primary instruction. This task is given to the local authorities. But, as they have no money, they generally s.h.i.+rk this duty, and, if they do set up a school, are unable to maintain it.[3171]

On the other hand, as instruction must be laic and Jacobin, "almost everywhere,"[3172] the teacher is an outcast layman, a fallen Jacobin, some old, starving party member, unemployed, foul-mouthed and of ill-repute. Families, naturally, refuse to trust their children with him; even when honorable, they avoid him; and the reason is that, in 1800, Jacobin and scoundrel have become synonymous terms. Henceforth, parents desire that their children should learn to read in the catechism and not in the declaration of rights:[3173] as they view it, the old manual formed polite and civilized youths and respectful sons; the new one forms only insolent rascals and precocious, slovenly blackguards.[3174] Consequently, the few primary schools in which the Republic has placed its people and imposed its educational system remain three-quarters empty; in vain does she close the doors of those in which other masters teach with other books; fathers persist in their repugnance and distaste; they prefer for their sons utter ignorance to unsound instruction.[3175]--A secular establishment, created and provided for by twenty generations of benefactors, gave gratis, or at a much lower rate, the first crumbs of intellectual food to more than 1,200,000 children.[3176] It was demolished; in its place, a few improvised and wretched barracks distributed here and there a small ration of moldy and indigestible bread. Thereupon, one long, low murmur, a long time suppressed, breaks out and keeps on increasing, that of parents whose children are condemned to go hungry; in any event, they demand that their sons and daughters be no longer forced, under penalty of fasting, to consume the patent flour of the State, that is to say a nauseous, unsatisfactory, badly-kneaded, badly-baked paste which, on trial, proves offensive to the palate and ruinous to the stomach.

VI. Religion

The Spirit and Ministrations of Catholicism.--How the Revolution develops a sense of this.

Another plaint is heard, deeper and more universal, that of all souls in which regret for their established church and forms of wors.h.i.+p still subsists or is revived.

In every religious system discipline and rites depend upon faith, for it is faith alone which suggests or prescribes these; they are the outcome and expansion of this; it attains its ends through these, and manifests itself by them; they are the exterior of which it is the interior; thus, let these be attacked and it is in distress; the living, palpitating flesh suffers through the sensitive skin.--In Catholicism, this skin is more sensitive than elsewhere, for it clings to the flesh, not alone through ordinary adhesiveness, the effect of adaptation and custom, but again through a special organic attachment, consisting of dogmatic doctrine; theology, in its articles of belief, has here set up the absolute necessity of the sacraments and of the priesthood; consequently, between the superficial and central divisions of religion the union is complete. The Catholic sacraments, therefore, are not merely symbols; they possess in themselves "an efficacious power, a sanctifying virtue." "That which they represent, they really work out."[3177] If I am denied access to them, I am cut off from the fountains to which my soul resorts to drink in grace, pardon, purity, health and salvation. If my children cannot be regularly baptized, they are not Christians; if extreme unction cannot be administered to my dying mother, she sets out on the long journey without the viatic.u.m; if I am married by the mayor only, my wife and I live in concubinage; if I cannot confess my sins, I am not absolved from them, and my burdened conscience seeks in vain for the helping hand which will ease the too heavy load; if I cannot perform my Easter duties, my spiritual life is a failure; the supreme and sublime act by which it perfects itself through the mystic union of my body and soul with the body, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, is wanting.--Now, none of these sacraments are valid if they have not been conferred by a priest, one who bears the stamp of a superior, unique, ineffaceable character, through a final sacrament consisting of ordination and which is conferred only on certain conditions; among other conditions, it is essential that this priest should have been ordained by a bishop; among other conditions, it is essential that this bishop[3178] should have been installed by the Pope.

Consequently, without the Pope there are no bishops; without bishops no priests; without priests no sacraments; without the sacraments no salvation. The ecclesiastical inst.i.tution is therefore indispensable to the believer. The canonical priesthood, the canonical hierarchy is necessary to him for the exercise of his faith.--He must have yet more, if fervent and animated with true old Christian sentiment, ascetic and mystic, which separates the soul from this world and ever maintains it in the presence of G.o.d. Several things are requisite to this end:

* First, vows of chast.i.ty, poverty and obedience, that is to say, the steady and voluntary repression of the most powerful animal instinct and of the strongest worldly appet.i.tes;

* Next, unceasing prayer, especially prayer in common, where the emotion of the prostrate soul increases through the emotion of the souls that surround it; in the same degree, active piety, meaning by this the doing of good works, education and charity, especially the accomplishment of repulsive tasks, such as attending the sick, the infirm, the incurable, idiots, maniacs and repentant prost.i.tutes;

* Finally, the strict daily rule which, a sort of rigorous and minute countersign, enjoining and compelling the repet.i.tion of the same acts at the same hours, renders habit the auxiliary of will, adds mechanical enthusiasm to a serious determination, and ends in making the task easy.

Hence, communities of men and of women, congregations and convents, these likewise, the same as the sacraments, the priesthood and the hierarchy, form a body along with belief and thus const.i.tute the inseparable organs of faith.

Before 1789, the ignorant or indifferent Catholic, the peasant at his plow, the artisan at his work-bench, the good wife attending to her household, were unconscious of this innermost suture. Thanks to the Revolution, they have acquired the sentiment of it and even the physical sensation. They had never asked themselves in what respect orthodoxy differed from schism, nor how positive religion was opposed to natural religion; it is the civil organization of the clergy which has led them to distinguish the difference between the unsworn cure and the interloper, between the right ma.s.s and the wrong ma.s.s; it is the prohibition of the ma.s.s which has led them to comprehend its importance; it is the revolutionary government which has transformed them into theologians and canonists.[3179] Compelled, under the Reign of Terror, to sing and dance before the G.o.ddess Reason, and next, in the temple of the "etre Supreme," subjected, under the Directory, to the new-fangled republican calendar, and to the insipidity of the decade festivals, they have measured, with their own eyes, the distance which separates a present, personal, incarnate deity, redeemer and savior, from a deity without form or substance, or, in any event, absent; a living, revealed, and time-honored religion, and an abstract, manufactured, improvised religion; their spontaneous wors.h.i.+p, which is an act of faith, and a wors.h.i.+p imposed on them which is only frigid parade; their priest, in a surplice, sworn to continence, delegated from on high to open out to them the infinite perspectives of heaven or h.e.l.l beyond the grave, and the republican subst.i.tute, officiating in a munic.i.p.al scarf, Peter or Paul, a lay-man like themselves, more or less married and convivialist, sent from Paris to preach a course of Jacobin morality.[3180]--Their attachment to their clergy, to the entire body regular and secular, is due to this contrast. Previously, they were not always well-disposed to it; the peasantry, nowhere, were content to pay t.i.thes, and the artisan, as well as the peasant, regarded the idle, well-endowed, meditative monks as but little more than so many fat drones. The man of the people in France, by virtue of being a Gaul, has a dry, limited imagination; he is not inclined to veneration, but is rather mocking, critical and insubordinate at the powers above him, with a hereditary undertone of distrust and envy at every man who wears a cloth suit and who eats and drinks without doing manual labor.--At this time, his clergy do not excite his envy, but his pity; monks and nuns, cure's and prelates, roofless, without bread, imprisoned, transported, guillotined, or, at best, fugitives, hunted down and more unfortunate than wild beasts--it is he who, during the persecutions of the years II, IV and VI, harbors them, conceals them, lodges them and feeds them. He sees them suffering for their faith, which is his faith, and, before their constancy, equal to that of the legendary martyrs, his indifference changes into respect and next into zeal. From the year IV,[3181] the orthodox priests have again recovered their place and ascendancy in his soul which the creed a.s.signs to them; they have again become his serviceable guides, his accepted directors, the only warranted interpreters of Christian truth, the only authorized dispensers and ministers of divine grace. He attends their ma.s.s immediately on their return and will put up with no other.

Brutalized as he may be, or indifferent and dull, and his mind filled with nothing but animal concerns, he needs them;[3182] he misses their solemnities, the great festivals, the Sunday; and this privation is a periodical want both for eyes and ears; he misses the ceremonial, the lights, the chants, the ringing of the bells, the morning and evening Angelus.--Thus, whether he knows it or not, his heart and senses are Catholic[3183] and he demands the old church back again. Before the Revolution, this church lived on its own revenues; 70,000 priests, 37,000 nuns, 23,000 monks, supported by endowments, cost the State nothing, and scarcely anything to the tax-payer; at any rate, they cost nothing to the actual, existing tax-payer not even the t.i.thes, for, established many centuries ago, the t.i.thes were a tax on the soil, not on the owner in possession, nor on the farmer who tilled the ground, who has purchased or hired it with this tax deducted. In any case, the real property of the Church belonged to it, without prejudice to anybody, through the strongest legal and most legitimate of property t.i.tles, the last will and testament of thousands of the dead, its founders and benefactors. All is taken from it, even the houses of prayer which, in their use, disposition and architecture, were, in the most manifest manner, Christian works and ecclesiastical objects, 38,000 parsonages, 4000 convents, over 40,000 parochial churches, cathedrals and chapels.

Every morning, the man or woman of the people, in whom the need of wors.h.i.+p has revived, pa.s.ses in front of one of these buildings robbed of its cult; these declare aloud to them through their form and name what they have been and what they should be to-day. This voice is heard by incredulous philosophers and former Conventionalists;[3184] all Catholics hear it, and out of thirty-five millions of Frenchmen,[3185]

thirty-two millions are Catholics.

VII. The Confiscated Property.

Reasons for the concordat.--Napoleon's economical organization of the Church inst.i.tution.--A good bargainer.

--Compromise with the old state of things.

How withstand such a just complaint, the universal complaint of the dest.i.tute, of relatives, and of believers?--The fundamental difficulty reappears, the nearly insurmountable dilemma into which the Revolution has plunged every steady government, that is to say the lasting effect of revolutionary confiscations and the conflict which sets two rights to the same property against each other, the right of the despoiled owner and the right of the owner in possession. This time, again the fault is on the side of the State, which has converted itself from a policeman into a brigand and violently appropriated to itself the fortune of the hospitals, schools, and churches; the State must return this in money or in kind. In kind, it is no longer able; everything has pa.s.sed out of its hands; it has alienated what it could, and now holds on only to the leavings. In money, nothing more can be done; it is itself ruined, has just become bankrupt, lives on expedients from day to day and has neither funds nor credit. n.o.body dreams of taking back property that is sold; nothing is more opposed to the spirit of the new Regime: not only would this be a robbery as before, since its buyers have paid for it and got their receipts, but again, in disputing their t.i.tle the government would invalidate its own. For its authority is derived from the same source as their property: it is established on the same principle as their rights of possession and by virtue of the same accomplished facts

* because things are as they are and could not be different,

* because ten years of revolution and eight years of war bear down on the present with too heavy a weight,

* because too many and too deep interests are involved and enlisted on the same side,

* because the interests of twelve hundred thousand purchasers are incorporated with those of the thirty thousand officers to whom the Revolution has provided a rank, along with that of all the new functionaries and dignitaries, including the First Consul himself, who, in this universal transposition of fortunes and ranks, is the greatest of parvenus and who must maintain the others if he wants to be maintained by them.

Naturally, he protects everybody, through calculation as well as sympathy, in the civil as in the military order of things, particularly the new property-owners, especially the smaller and the average ones, his best clients, attached to his reign and to his person through love of property, the strongest pa.s.sion of the ordinary man, and through love of the soil, the strongest pa.s.sion of the peasant.[3186] Their loyalty depends on their security, and consequently he is lavish of guarantees.

In his const.i.tution of the year VIII,[3187] he declares in the name of the French nation that after a legally consummated sale of national property, whatever its origin, the legitimate purchaser cannot be divested of it." Through the inst.i.tution of the Legion of Honor he obliges each member "to swear, on his honor, to devote himself to the conservation of property sanctioned by the laws of the republic."[3188]

According to the terms of the imperial const.i.tution[3189] "he swears"

himself "to respect and to enforce respect for the irrevocability of the sale of national possessions."

Unfortunately, a cannon-ball on the battle-field, an infernal machine in the street, an illness at home, may carry off the guarantor and the guarantees.[3190] On the other hand, confiscated goods preserve their original taint. Rarely is the purchaser regarded favorably in his commune; the bargain he has made excites envy; he is not alone in his enjoyment of it, but the rest suffer from it. Formerly, this or that field of which he reaps the produce, this or that domain of which he enjoys the rental, once provided for the parsonage, the asylum and the school; now the school, the asylum and the parsonage die through inanition for his advantage; he fattens on their fasting. In his own house, his wife and mother often look melancholy, especially during Easter week; if he is old, or becomes ill, his conscience disturbs him; this conscience, through habit and heredity, is Catholic: he craves absolution at the last moment at the priest's hands, and says to himself that, at the last moment, he may not probably be absolved.[3191] In other respects, he would find it difficult to satisfy himself that his legal property is legitimate property; for, not only is it not so rightfully before the tribunal of conscience, but again it is not so in fact on the market; the figures, in this particular, are convincing, daily and notorious. A patrimonial domain which brings in 3000 francs finds a purchaser at 100,000 francs; alongside of this a national domain which brings in just as much, finds a purchaser only at 60,000 francs; after several sales and resale, the depreciation continues and 40 % of the value of the confiscated property is lost.[3192] A low, indistinct murmur is heard, and reverberates from sale to sale, the muttering of private probity protesting against public probity, declaring to the new proprietor that his t.i.tle is defective; it lacks one clause and a capital one, that of the surrender and cession, the formal renunciation, the authentic withdrawal of the former owner. The State, the first seller, owes this voucher to the purchasers; let it procure this and negotiate accordingly; let it apply for this to the rightful party, to the owners whom it has dispossessed, to the immemorial and legitimate authorities, I mean to the ancient corporations. These have been dissolved by revolutionary law and have no longer a representative who can sign for them. Nevertheless, in spite of revolutionary law, one of these corporations, with more vitality than the rest, still subsists with its proper, if not legal, representative, its regular and undisputed chief. This chief is qualified and authorized to bind the body; for, inst.i.tutionally, he is supreme, and the conscience of all its members is in his hand. His signature is of the highest value; it is very important to obtain this, and the First Consul concludes the Concordat with the Pope.

By this Concordat, the Pope "declares that neither himself nor his successors shall in any manner disturb the purchasers of alienated ecclesiastical property, and that the owners.h.i.+p of the said property, the rights and revenues derived there from, shall consequently remain in commutable in their hands or in those of their a.s.signs."[3193]

Henceforth the possession of this property is no longer a sin; at least, it is not condemned by the spiritual authority, by that external conscience which, in Catholic countries, governs the inward conscience and often supplies its place; the Church, the moral head, removes with its own hands the moral scruple, the last small stone, troublesome and dangerous, which, lying underneath the cornerstone of lay society, breaks the level of the entire structure and compromises the equilibrium of the new government.--In exchange, the State endows the Church. By the same Concordat, and by the decrees which follow it, "the government[3194] ensures a suitable salary to bishops and cure's,"

15,000 francs to each archbishop, 10,000 francs to each bishop, 1500 francs to each cure of the first cla.s.s and 1000 francs to each cure of the second cla.s.s,[3195] also, later on,[3196] a maximum of 500 francs and a minimum of 300 francs to each a.s.sistant-priest or vicar. "If circ.u.mstances require it,[3197] the conseils-generaux of the large communes may grant to prelates or to cures an increase of salary out of their rural possessions or octrois." In all cases, archbishops, bishops, cures and priests shall be lodged, or receive a lodging indemnity. So much for the support of persons.-As to real property,[3198] "all the metropolitan churches, cathedrals, parochial buildings and others, not alienated, and needed for the purposes of wors.h.i.+p, shall be subject to the disposition of the bishops."--The parsonages and gardens attached to these, not alienated, shall be given up to the cures and a.s.sistant-priests."--"The possessions of the fabriques,[3199] not alienated, as well as the rentals they enjoyed, and which have not been transferred, shall be restored to their original purpose.--As to the outlay and expenditure for wors.h.i.+p,[31100] for the parochial center or cathedral, if its revenue is not sufficient, this shall receive aid from its commune or from its department; besides, "an a.s.sessment of 10 %.[31101] shall be laid on the revenues of all the real estate of the communes, such as houses, woods, and rural possessions, for the formation of a common fund of subsidy," a general sum with which to provide for "acquisitions, reconstructions or repairs of churches,...

seminaries and parsonages." Moreover,[31102] the government allows "the French Catholics to make endowments, if so disposed, in favor of churches.. . for the support of ministers and the exercise of wors.h.i.+p,"

that is to say to bequeath or make gifts to the fabriques or seminaries; in fine, it exempts seminarists, the future cure's, from the conscription.

It also exempts the "Ignorantins," or brethren of the Christian schools, who are the instructors of the common people. With respect to these and in relation to every other Catholic inst.i.tution, it follows the same utilitarian principle, the fundamental maxim of laic and practical good sense: when religious vocations make their appearance and serve the public, it welcomes and makes use of them; it grants them facilities, dispensations and favors, its protection, its donations, or at least its tolerance. Not only does it turn their zeal to account, but it authorizes their a.s.sociation.[31103] Numerous societies of men or of women again spring up with the a.s.sent of the public authorities--the "Ignorantins," the "Filles de la Charite," the "Seurs Hospitalieres,"

the "Saeurs de Saint-Thomas," the "Saeurs de Saint-Charles," the "Saeurs Vatelottes." The Council of State accepts and approves of their statutes, vows, hierarchy, and internal regulations. They again become proprietors; they may accept donations and legacies. The State frequently makes presents to them. In 1808,[31104] thirty-one communities of Sisters of Charity, and mostly educational, thus obtain the buildings and furniture they ask for, in full possession and gratuitously. The State, also, frequently supports them;[31105] it repeatedly decides that in this asylum, or in that school, the "sisters"

designated by the ancient foundation shall resume their work and be paid out of the income of the asylum or school. Better still, and notwithstanding threatening decrees,[31106] Napoleon, between 1804 and 1814, allows fifty-four communities to arise and exist, outside of the congregations authorized by him, which do not submit their statutes to him and which dispense with his permission to exist; he lets them live and does not disturb them; he judges[31107] "that there is every sort of character and imagination, that eccentricities even should not be repressed when they do no harm," that, for certain people, an ascetic life in common is the only refuge; if that is all they desire they should not be disturbed, and it is easy to feign ignorance of them; but let them remain quiet and be sufficient unto themselves!--Such is the new growth of the regular clergy alongside of the secular clergy, the two main branches of the Catholic trunk. Owing to the help, or to the authorization, or to the connivance of the State, inside or outside of its limitations, both clerical bodies, legally or in reality, recover a civil existence, and thus obtain, or at least nearly so, their physical maintenance.[31108]

And nothing more. n.o.body, better than Napoleon, knows how to make a good bargain, that is to say, to give a little in order to gain a great deal. In this treaty with the Church he tightens his purse-strings and especially avoids parting with his ready money. Six hundred and fifty thousand francs for fifty bishops and ten archbishops, a little more than four million francs for the three or four thousand cantonal cures, in all five million francs per annum, is all that the State promises to the new clergy. Later on,[31109] he takes it on himself to pay those who officiate in the branch chapels; nevertheless, in 1807, the entire appropriation for public wors.h.i.+p costs the State only twelve million francs a year;[31110] the rest, as a rule, and especially the salaries of the forty thousand a.s.sistant-priests and vicars, must be provided by the fabriques and the communes.[31111] Let the clergy benefit by occasional contributions;[31112] let it appeal to the piety of believers for its monstrances, chalices, albs and chasubles, for decorations and the other expenses of wors.h.i.+p; they are not prohibited from being liberal to it, not only during the services, on making collections, but in their houses, within closed doors, from hand to hand. Moreover, they have the right of making gifts or bequests before a notary, of establis.h.i.+ng foundations in favor of seminaries and churches; the foundation, after verification and approval by the Council of State, becomes operative; only,[31113] it must consist of state securities, because, in this shape, it helps maintain their value and the credit of the government; in no case must it be composed of real estate;[31114]

should the clergy become land-owners it would enjoy too much local influence. No bishop, no cure must feel himself independent; he must be and always remain a mere functionary, a hired workman for whom the State provides work in a shop with a roof overhead, a suitable and indispensable atelier, in other words, the house of prayer well known in each parish as "one of the edifices formerly a.s.signed to wors.h.i.+p."

This edifice is not restored to the Christian community, nor to its representatives; it is simply "placed at the disposition of the bishop."[31115] The State retains the owners.h.i.+p of it, or transfers this to the communes; it concedes to the clergy merely the right of using it, and, in that, loses but little. Parish and cathedral churches in its hands are, for the most part, dead capital, nearly useless and almost valueless; through their structure, they are not fitted for civil offices; it does not know what to do with them except to make barns of them; if it sells them it is to demolishers for their value as building material, and then at great scandal. Among the parsonages and gardens that have been surrendered, several have become communal property,[31116] and, in this case, it is not the State which loses its t.i.tle but the commune which is deprived of its investment. In short, in the matter of available real estate, land or buildings, from which the State might derive a rent, that which it sets off from its domain and hands over to the clergy is of very little account. As to military service, it makes no greater concessions. Neither the Concordat nor the organic articles stipulate any exemption for the clergy; the dispensation granted is simply a favor; this is provisional for the seminarians and only becomes permanent under ordination; now, the government fixes the number of the ordained, and it keeps this down as much as possible;[31117] for the diocese of Gren.o.ble, it allows only eight in seven years.[31118] In this way, it not only saves conscripts, but again, for lack of young priests, it forces the bishops to appoint old priests, even const.i.tutionalists, nearly all pensioners on the treasury, and which either relieves the treasury of a pension or the commune of a subsidy.[31119]--Thus, in the reconstruction of the ecclesiastical fortune the State spares itself and the portion it contributes remains very small: it furnishes scarcely more than the plan, a few corner and foundation stones and the permission or injunction to build; the rest concerns the communes and private individuals. They must exert themselves, continue and complete it, by order or spontaneously and under its permanent direction.

VIII. Public Education.

State appropriations very small.--Toleration of educational inst.i.tutions.--The interest of the public in them invited.

--The University.--Its monopoly.--Practically, his restrictions and conditions are effective.--Satisfaction given to the first group of requirements.

Invariably the government proceeds in the same manner with the reorganization of the other two collective fortunes.--As regards the charitable inst.i.tutions, under the Directory, the asylums and hospitals had their unsold property restored to them, and in the place of what had been sold they were promised national property of equal value.[31120]

But this was a complicated operation; things had dragged along in the universal disorder and, to carry it out, the First Consul reduced and simplified it. He at once sets aside a portion of the national domain, several distinct morsels in each district or department, amounting in all to four millions of annual income derived from productive real-estate,[31121] which he distributes among the asylums, pro rata, according to their losses. He a.s.signs to them, moreover, all the rents, in money or in kind, due for foundations to parishes, cures, fabriques and corporations; finally, "he applies to their wants" various outstanding claims, all national domains which have been usurped by individuals or communes and which may be subsequently recovered, "all rentals be-longing to the Republic, the recognition and payment of which have been interrupted."[31122] In short, he rummages every corner and picks out the sc.r.a.ps which may help them along; then, resuming and extending another undertaking of the Directory, he a.s.signs to them, not merely in Paris, but in many other towns, a portion of the product derived from theatres and octrois.[31123]--Having thus increased their income, he applies himself to diminis.h.i.+ng their expenses. On the one hand, he gives them back their special servants, those who cost the least and work the best, I mean the Sisters of Charity. On the other hand, he binds them down rigidly to exact accounts; he subjects them to strict supervision; he selects for them competent and suitable administrators; he stops, here as everywhere else, waste and peculation.

Henceforth, the public reservoir to which the poor come to quench their thirst is repaired and cleaned; the water remains pure and no longer oozes out; private charity may therefore pour into it its fresh streams with full security; on this side, they flow in naturally, and, at this moment, with more force than usual, for, in the reservoir, half-emptied by revolutionary confiscations, the level is always low.

There remain the inst.i.tutions for instruction. With respect to these, the restoration seems more difficult, for their ancient endowment is almost entirely wasted; the government has nothing to give back but dilapidated buildings, a few scattered investments formerly intended for the maintenance of a college scholars.h.i.+p,[31124] or for a village schoolhouse. And to whom should these be returned since the college and the schoolhouse no longer exist?--Fortunately, instruction is an article of such necessity that a father almost always tries to procure it for his children; even if poor, he is willing to pay for it, if not too dear; only, he wants that which pleases him in kind and in quality and, therefore, from a particular source, bearing this or that factory stamp or label. If you want him to buy it do not drive the purveyors of it from the market who enjoy his confidence and who sell it cheaply; on the contrary, welcome them and allow them to display their wares. This is the first step, an act of toleration; the conseils-generaux demand it and the government yields.[31125] It permits the return of the Ignorantin brethren, allows them to teach and authorizes the towns to employ them; later on, it graduates them at its University: in 1810, they already possess 41 schoolhouses and 8400 pupils.[31126] Still more liberally, it authorizes and favors female educational congregations; down to the end of the empire and afterwards, nuns are about the only instructors of young girls, especially in primary education.--Owing to the same toleration, the upper schools are likewise reorganized, and not less spontaneously, through the initiative of private individuals, communes, bishops, colleges or pensionnats, at Reims, Fontainebleau, Metz, evreux, Sorreze, Juilly, La Fleche and elsewhere small seminaries in all the dioceses. Offer and demand have come together; instructors meet the children half-way, and education begins on all sides.[31127]

Thought can now be given to its endowment, and the State invites everybody, the communes as well as private persons, to the undertaking.

It is on their liberality that it relies for replacing the ancient foundations; it solicits gifts and legacies in favor of new establishments, and it promises "to surround these donations with the most invariable respect."[31128] Meanwhile, and as a precautionary measure, it a.s.signs to each its eventual duty;[31129] if the commune establishes a primary school for itself, it must provide the tutor with a lodging and the parents must compensate him; if the commune founds a college or accepts a lycee, it must pay for the annual support of the building,[31130] while the pupils, either day-scholars or boarders, pay accordingly. In this way, the heavy expenses are already met, and the State, the general-manager of the service, furnishes simply a very small quota; and this quota, mediocre as a rule, is found almost null in fact, for its main largess consists in 6400 scholars.h.i.+ps which it establishes and engages to support; but it confers only about 3000 of them,[31131]

and it distributes nearly all of these among the children of its military or civilian employees This way a son's scholars.h.i.+p becomes additional pay or an increased salary for the father; thus, the 2 millions which the State seems, under this head, to a.s.sign to the lycees are actually gratifications which it distributes among its functionaries and officials: it takes back with one hand what it be-stows with the other.--Having put this in place, it establishes the University. It is not at its own expense, however, but at the expense of others, at the expense of private persons and parents, of the communes, and above all at the expense of rival schools and private boarding-schools, of the free inst.i.tutions, and all this in favor of the University monopoly which subjects these to special taxation as ingenious as it is multifarious.[31132] A private individual obtaining diploma to open on a boarding school must pay from 200 to 300 francs to the University; likewise, every person obtaining a diploma to open an inst.i.tution shall pay from 400 to 600 francs to the University; likewise every person obtaining permission to lecture on law or medicine.[31133] Every student, boarder, half-boarder or day-scholar in any school, inst.i.tution, seminary, college or lycee, must pay to the University one-twentieth of the sum which the establishment to which he belongs demands of each of its pupils. In the higher schools, in the faculties of law, medicine, science and literature, the students pay entrance and examination fees and for diplomas, so that the day comes when superior instruction provides for its expenditures out of its receipts and even shows on its budget a net surplus of profit. The new University, with its expenses thus defrayed, will support itself alone; accordingly, all that the State really grants to it, as a veritable gift, in ready cash, is 400,000 francs annual income on the public ledger, a little less than the donation of one single college, Louis-le-Grand, in 1789.[31134]

It may even be said that it is exactly the fortune of the old college which, after being made use of in many ways, turned aside and with other mischance, becomes the patrimony of the new University.[31135] From high-school to University, the State has effected the transfer. Such is its generosity. This is especially apparent in connection with primary instruction; in 1812, for the first time, it allows 25,000 francs for this purpose, of which only 4,500 are received.[31136]

Such is the final liquidation of the great collective fortunes. A settlement of accounts, an express or tacit bargain, intervenes between the State and all inst.i.tutions for instruction, wors.h.i.+p and charity. It has taken from the poor, from the young and from believers, 5 milliards of capital and 270 millions of revenue;[31137] it gives back to them, in public income and treasury interest, about 17 millions per annum. As it has the might and makes the law it has no difficulty in obtaining or in giving itself its own discharge; it is a bankrupt who, having spent his creditors money, bestows on these 6%. of their claim by way of alms.

Naturally, it takes the opportunity to bring them under its strict and permanent dependence, in adding other claims to those with which the old monarchy had already burdened the corporations that administered collective fortunes. Napoleon increases the weight of these chains and screws them tighter. Not only does he take it upon himself to impose order, probity, and economy on the administrators, but, again, he appoints them, dismisses them, and prescribes or authorizes each of their acts. He puts words in their mouths; he wants to be the great bishop, the universal genius, the sole tutor and professor, in short, the dictator of opinion, the creator and director of every political, social and moral idea throughout his empire.--With what rigidity and pertinacious intent, with what variety and convergence of means, with what plenitude and certainty of execution, with what detriment and with what danger, present and to come, for corporations, for the public, for the State, for himself, we shall see presently; he himself, living and reigning, is to realize this. For his interference, pushed to extremes, is to end in encountering resistance in a body which he considers as his own creature, the Church: here, forgetting that she has roots of her own, deep down and out of his reach, he carries off the Pope, holds him captive, sends cardinals into the interior, (Page 198/504)imprisons bishops, banishes priests, and incorporates seminarians in his regiments.[31138] He decrees the closing of all small seminaries,[31139]

alienates forever the Catholic clergy like the royalist n.o.bility, precisely at the same moment and through the same absolutism, through the same abuse of power, through the same recurrence to revolutionary tradition, to Jacobin infatuation and brutality, even to the frustration of his Concordat of 1802 as with his amnesty of 1802, even to compromising his capital work of the attempted reconciliation and reunion of old France with the new France. His work, nevertheless, although incomplete, even interrupted and marred by himself, remains substantial and salutary. The three grand machines which the Revolution had demolished with so little foresight, and which he had reconstructed at so little cost, are in working order, and, with deviations or shortcomings in result, they render to the public the required services, each its own, wors.h.i.+p, charity and instruction. Full toleration and legal protection to the three leading Christian cults, and even to Judaism, would of itself already satisfy the most sensitive of religious demands; owing to the donation furnished by the State and communes and by private individuals, the necessary complement is not wanting.

The Catholic community, in particular, the most numerous of all, exercises and celebrates its system of wors.h.i.+p in conformity with its faith, according to ecclesiastical canons under its own orthodox hierarchy; in each parish, or within reach of each parish, dwells one authorized priest who administers valid sacraments; in his stole he says ma.s.s publicly in a consecrated edifice, plainly decorated at first but gradually beautified; not less publicly, various congregations of monks and nuns, the former in black robes and the "sisters in wimples and white caps, serve in the schools and asylums.

On the other hand, in these well-equipped and well-governed asylums and hospitals, in the bureaux of charity, their resources are no longer inferior to their needs, while Christian charity and philanthropic generosity are constantly operating in all directions to fill the empty drawers; legacies and private donations, after 1802, authorized by the Council of State, multiply; we see them swelling the pages of the "Bulletin des Lois."[31140] From 1800 to 1845, the hospitals and asylums are thus to receive more than 72 millions, and the charity bureaux over 49 millions; from 1800 to 1878, all together will thus receive more than 415 millions.[31141] The old patrimony of the poor is again reconst.i.tuted piece by piece; and on January 1st, 1833, asylums and hospitals, with their 51 millions of revenue, are able to support 154,000 elderly and the sickly.[31142]

Like public charity, public education again becomes effective; Fourcroy, after 1806,[31143] lists 29 organized and full lycees; besides these, 370 communal secondary schools and 377 private secondary schools are open and receive 50,200; there are 25,000 children in the 4500 schools.

Finally, in 1815,[31144] we find in France, restored to its ancient boundaries, 12 faculties of Law or Medicine with 6,329 students, 36 lycees with 9000 pupils, 368 colleges with 28,000 pupils, 41 small seminaries with 5233 pupils, 1255 boarding-schools and private inst.i.tutions with 39,623 pupils, and 22,348 primary schools with 737,369 scholars; as far as can be gathered, the proportion of men and women able to read and to sign their name is raised under the empire up to and beyond the figures[31145] it had reached previous to 1789.