[Footnote 6262: "Moniteur," Jan. I, 1806. (Tribunate, session of Nivose 9, year XIV., speeches of MM. Albisson and Gillet.--Senate, speeches of MM. Perignon, Garat, de Lacepede.)--In the following numbers we find munic.i.p.al addresses, letters of bishops and the odes of poets in the same strain.--In the way of official enthusiasm take the following two fine examples. ("Debats," March 29, 1811.) "The Paris munic.i.p.al council deliberated on the vote of a pension for life of 10,000 francs in favor of M. de Govers, His Majesty's second page, for bringing to the Hotel de Ville the joyful news of the birth of the King of Rome.. .. Everybody was charmed with his grace and presence of mind."--Faber, "Notices sur l'interieur de France," p.25. "I know of a tolerably large town which could not light its lamps in 1804, on account of having sent its mayor to Paris at the expense of the commune to see Bonaparte crowned."]

[Footnote 6263: Taine here explains the method which was to be copied by all the totalitarian leaders of the 20th century, especially by the ever present communist-socialist-revolutionary organizations and their more or less hidden leaders. (SR.)]

[Footnote 6264: Lenin, Stalin and their successors must all have found this idea interesting and did also proceed to put much of the media in the world under their control. (SR.)]

[Footnote 6265: Faber, ibid., p. 32 (1807). "I saw one day a physician, an honest man, unexpectedly denounced for having stated in a social gathering in the town some observations on the medical system under the existing government. The denunciator, a French employee, was the physician's friend and denounced him because he was afraid of being denounced himself."--Count Chaptal, "Notes." Enumeration of the police forces which control and complete each other. "Besides the minister and the prefect of police Napoleon had three directors-general residing at Paris and also in superintendence of the departments;.. besides, commissioners-general of police in all the large towns and special commissioners in all others; moreover, the gendarmerie, which daily transmitted a bulletin of the situation all over France to the inspector-general; again, reports of his aids and generals, of his guard on supplementary police, the most dangerous of all to persons about the court and to the princ.i.p.al agents of the administration; finally, several special police-bodies to render to him an account of what pa.s.sed among savants, tradesmen and soldiers. All this correspondence reached him at Moscow as at the Tuileries."]

[Footnote 6266: Faber, ibid. (1807), p.35. "Lying, systematically organized, forming the basis of government and consecrated in public acts,... the abjuring of all truth, of all personal conviction, is the characteristic of the administrators as presenting to view the acts, sentiments and ideas of the government, which makes use of them for scenic effect in the pieces it gives on the theatre of the world...

. The administrators do not believe a word they say, nor those administered."]

[Footnote 6267: The following two confidential police reports show, among many others, the sentiments of the public and the usefulness of repressive measures. (Archives nationales, F.7, 3016, Report of the commissioner-general of Ma.r.s.eilles for the second quarter of 1808.) "Events in Spain have largely fixed, and essentially fixed, attention.

In vain would the attentive observer like to conceal the truth on this point; the fact is that the Spanish revolution is unfavorably looked upon. It was at first thought that the legitimate heir would succeed to Charles IV. The way in which people have been undeceived has given the public a direction quite opposite to the devoted ideas of His Majesty the Emperor... No generous soul... rises to the level of the great continental cause."--Ibid. (Report for the second quarter of 1809.) "I have posted observers in the public grounds.... As a result of these measures, of this constant vigilance, of the care I have taken to summon before me the heads of public establishments when I have ascertained that the slightest word has been spoken, I attain the end proposed. But I am a.s.sured that if the fear of the upper police did not restrain the disturbers, the brawlers, they would publicly express an opinion contrary to the principles of the government.... Public opinion is daily going down. There is great misery and consternation. Murmurs are not openly heard, but discontent exists among citizens generally.... The continental war. the naval warfare, events in Rome, Spain and Germany, the absolute cessation of trade, the conscription, the droits unis...

are all so many motives of corruption of the public mind. Priests and devotees, merchants and proprietors, artisans, workmen, the people in fine, everybody is discontented.... In general, they are insensible to the continental victories. All cla.s.ses of citizens are much more sensitive to the levies of the conscription than to the successes which come from them."]

[Footnote 6268: There is here, 100 years later, a message for us about the enormous force which, under the name of politically correct, is haunting our media, our universities and our political life. (SR.)]

CHAPTER III. EVOLUTION BETWEEN 1814 AND 1890.

I. Evolution of the Napoleonic machine.

History of the Napoleonic machine.--The first of its two arms, operating on adults, is dislocated and breaks.--The second, which operates on youth, works intact until 1850.

--Why it remains intact.--Motives of governors.--Motives of the governed.

After him, the springs of his machine relax; and so do, naturally, the two groups controlled by the machine. The first, that of adult men, frees itself the most and the soonest: during the following half century, we see the preventive or repressive censorship of books, journals and theatres, every special instrument that gags free speech, relaxing its hold, breaking down bit by bit and at last tumbling to the ground. Even when again set up and persistently and brutally applied, old legal muzzles are never to become as serviceable as before. No government will undertake, like that of Napoleon, to stop at once all outlets of written thought; some will always remain more or less open.

Even during the rigorous years of the Restoration and of the second Empire the stifling process is to diminish; mouths open and there is some way of public expression, at least in books and likewise through the press, provided one speaks discreetly and moderately in cool and general terms and in a low, even tone of voice. Here, the imperial machine, too aggressive, soon broke down; immediately, the iron arm by which it held adults seemed insupportable to them and they were able more and more to bend, push it away or break it. Today, in 1890, nothing remains of it but its fragments; for twenty years it has ceased to work and its parts, even, are utterly useless.

But, to the contrary, in the other direction, in the second group, on children, on boys, on young men, the second arm, intact down to 1850, then shortened but soon strengthened, more energetic and more effective than ever, maintained its hold almost entirely.

Undoubtedly, after 1814, its mechanism is less rigid, its application less strict, its employment less universal, its operation less severe; it gives less offence and does not hurt as much. For example, after the first Restoration,[6301] the decree of 1811 against the smaller seminaries is repealed. They are handed back to the bishops, resume their ecclesiastical character and return to the special and normal road out of which Napoleon forced them to march. The drum, the drill and other exercises too evidently Napoleonic disappear almost immediately in the private and public establishments devoted to common instruction. The school system ceases to be a military apprenticeship and the college is no longer a preparatory annex for the barracks. Soon and for many years, Guizot, Cousin, and Villemain brilliantly hold the chairs at Sorbonne university and teach the highest subjects of philosophy, literature and history admired by attentive and sympathetic audiences. Later, under the monarchy of July, the Inst.i.tute, mutilated by the First Consul, restores and completes itself. It becomes once more united with the suspect division of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, which after the Consulate, had been missing. In 1833, a minister, Guizot, provides, through a law which has become an inst.i.tution, for the regular maintenance, the obligatory appropriation, the certain recruitment, and for the quality and universality of primary instruction. At the same time, during eighteen years, the university administration, moderating its pressure or smoothing its sharp points, operates at the three stages of instruction in tolerant or liberal hands, with all the caution compatible with its organization. It does so in such a way as to do a great deal of good without much harm, by half-satisfying the majority which, in its entirety, is semi-believer, semi-freethinker, by not seriously offending anybody except the Catholic clergy and that unyielding minority which, through doctrinal principle or through religious zeal, a.s.signs to education as a directing end and supreme object, the definitive cultivation, rooting and flowering of faith. But, in law as well as in fact, the University of 1808 still subsists; it has kept its rights, it levies its taxes, it exercises its jurisdiction and enjoys its monopoly.

In the early days of the Restoration, in 1814, the government maintained it only provisionally. It promised everything, radical reform and full liberty. It announced that, through its efforts, "the forms and direction of the education of children should be restored to the authority of fathers and mothers, tutors and families."[6302] Simply a prospectus and an advertis.e.m.e.nt by the new pedagogue who installs himself and thus, by soothing words, tries to conciliate parents. After a partial sketch and an ordinance quickly repealed,[6303] the rulers discover that the University of Napoleon is a very good reigning tool, much better than that of which they had the management previous to 1789, much easier handled and more serviceable. It is the same with all social tools sketched out and half-fashioned by the Revolution and completed and set a-going by the Consulate and the Empire; each is constructed "by reason," "according to principles," and therefore its mechanism is simple; its pieces all fit into each other with precision; they transmit throughout exactly the impulsion received and thus operate at one stroke, with uniformity, instantaneously, with cert.i.tude, oil all parts of the territory; the lever which starts the machine is central and, throughout its various services, the new rulers hold this lever in hand.

Apropos of local administration, the Duc d'Angouleme said in 1815,[6304]

"We prefer the departments to the provinces." In like manner, the government of the restored monarchy prefers the imperial University, sole, unique, coherent, disciplined and centralized, to the old provincial universities, the old scattered, scholastic inst.i.tution, diverse, superintended rather than governed, to every school establishment more or less independent and spontaneous.

In the first place, it gains thereby a vast staff of salaried dependents, the entire teaching staff,[6305] on which it has a hold through its favors or the reverse through ambition and the desire for promotion, through fear of dismissal and concern for daily bread. At first, 22,000 primary teachers, thousands of professors, directors, censors, princ.i.p.als, regents and subordinates in the 36 lycees, 368 colleges and 1255 inst.i.tutions and boarding-schools. After this, many hundreds of notable individuals, all the leading personages of each university circ.u.mscription, the administrators of 28 academies, the professors of the 23 literary faculties, of the 10 faculties of the sciences, of the 9 faculties of law, and of the 3 faculties of medicine. Add to these, the savants of the College de France and ecole Polytechnique, every establishment devoted to high, speculative or practical instruction: these are highest in repute and the most influential; here the heads of science and of literature are found.

Through them and their seconds or followers of every degree, in the faculties, lycees, colleges, minor seminaries, inst.i.tutions, boarding schools, and small schools, beliefs or opinions can be imposed on, or suggested to, 2000 law students, 4000 medical students, 81,000 thousand pupils in secondary education and 700,000 scholars in the primary department. Let us retain and make use of this admirable tool, but let us apply it to our own purposes and utilize it for our service.[6306]

Thus far, under the Republic and the Empire, its designers, more or less Jacobin, have moved it as they thought best, and therefore moved it to the "left". Let us now move, as it suits us, to the "right."[6307]

All that is necessary is to turn it in another direction and for good; henceforth," the basis of education[6308] shall be religion, monarchy, legitimacy and the charter."

To this end, we, the dominant party, use our legal rights. In the place of bad wheels we put good ones. We purify our staff. We do not appoint or leave in place any but safe men. At the end of six years, nearly all the rectors, proviseurs and professors of philosophy, many other professors and a number of the censors,[6309] are all priests. At the Sorbonne, M. Cousin has been silenced and M. Guizot replaced by M.

Durosoir. At the College de France we have dismissed Tissot and we do not accept M. Magendie. We "suppress" in block the Faculty of Medicine in order that, on reorganizing it, our hands may be free and eleven professors with bad notes be got rid of, among others Pinel, Dubois, de Jussieu, Desgenettes, Pelletan and Vauquelin. We suppress another center of insalubrities, the upper ecole Normale, and, for the recruitment of our educational body, we inst.i.tute[6310] at the princ.i.p.al seat of each academy a sort of university novitiate where the pupils, few in number, expressly selected, prepared from their infancy, will imbibe deeper and more firmly retain the sound doctrines suitable to their future condition.

We let the small seminaries multiply and fill up until they comprise 50,000 pupils. It is the bishop who founds them; no educator or inspector of education is so worthy of confidence. Therefore, we confer upon him "in all that concerns religion,"[6311] the duty "of visiting them himself, or delegating his vicars-general to visit them," the faculty "of suggesting to the royal council of public instruction the measures which he deems necessary." At the top of the hierarchy sits a Grand-Master with the powers and t.i.tle of M. de Fontanes and with an additional t.i.tle, member of the cabinet and minister of public instruction, M. de Freyssinous, bishop of Hermopolis,[6312] and, in difficult cases, this bishop, placed between his Catholic conscience and the positive articles of the legal statute, "sacrifices the law" to his conscience.[6313]--This is the advantage which can be taken from the tool of public education. After 1850, it is to be used in the same way and in the same sense; after 1796, and later after 1875, it was made to work as vigorously in the opposite direction. Whatever the rulers may be, whether monarchists, imperialists or republicans, they are the masters who use it for their own advantage; for this reason, even when resolved not to abuse the instrument, they keep it intact; they reserve the use of it for themselves,[6314] and pretty hard blows are necessary to sever or relax the firm hold which they have on the central lever.

Except for these excesses and especially after they finish, when the government, from 1828 to 1848, ceases to be sectarian, and the normal play of the inst.i.tution is no longer corrupted by political interference, the governed accept the University in block, just as their rulers maintain it: they also have motives of their own, the same as for submitting to other tools of Napoleonic centralization.--And first of all, as a departmental and communal inst.i.tution, the university inst.i.tution operates wholly alone; it exacts little or no collaboration on the part of those interested; it relieves them of any effort, dispute or care, which is pleasant. Like the local administration, which, without their help or with scarcely any, provides them with bridges, roads, ca.n.a.ls, cleanliness, salubrity and precautions against contagious diseases, the scholastic administration, without making any demand on their indolence, puts its full service, the local and central apparatus of primary, secondary, superior and special instruction, its staff and material, furniture and buildings, masters and schedules, examinations and grades, rules and discipline, expenditure and receipts, all at its disposition. As at the door of a table d'hote, they are told,

"Come in and take a seat. We offer you the dishes you like best and in the most convenient order. Don't trouble yourself about the waiters or the kitchen; a grand central society, an intelligent and beneficent agency, presiding at Paris takes charge of this and relieves you of it.

Pa.s.s your plate, and eat; that is all you need care about. Besides, the charge is very small."[6315]

In effect, here as elsewhere, Napoleon has introduced his rigid economical habits, exact accounts and timely or disguised tax-levies.[6316] A few additional centimes among a good many others inserted by his own order in the local budget, a few imperceptible millions among several hundreds of other millions in the enormous sum of the central budget, const.i.tute the resources which defray the expenses of public education. Not only does the quota of each taxpayer for this purpose remain insignificant, but it disappears in the sum total of which it is only an item that he does not notice.--The parents, for the instruction of a child, do not pay out of their pockets directly, with the consciousness of a distinct service rendered them and which they indemnify,[6317] but 12, 10, 3, or even 2 francs a year; again, through the increasing extension of gratis instruction, a fifth, then a third,[6318] and later one half of them are exempt from this charge.

For secondary instruction, at the college or the lycee, they take out of their purses annually only 40 or 50 francs; and, if their son is a boarder, these few francs mingle in with others forming the total sum paid for him during the year, about 700 francs,[6319] which is a small sum for defraying the expenses, not only of instruction, but, again, for the support of the lad in lodging, food, washing, light, fire and the rest. The parents, at this rate, feel that they are not making a bad bargain; they are not undergoing extortion, the State not acting like a rapacious contractor. And better yet, it is often a paternal creditor, distributing, as it does, three or four thousand scholarships. If their son obtains one of these, their annual debt is remitted to them and the entire university provision of instruction and support is given to them gratis. In the Faculties, the payment of fees for entrance, examinations, grades and diplomas is not surprising, for the certificates or parchments they receive in exchange for their money are, for the young man, so many positive acquisitions which smooth the way to a career and serve as valuable stock which confers upon him social rank.

Besides, the entrance to these Faculties is free and gratuitous, as well as in all other establishments for superior instruction. Whoever chooses and when he chooses may attend without paying a cent.

Thus const.i.tuted, the University seems to the public as a liberal, democratic, humanitarian inst.i.tution and yet economical, expending very little. Its administrators and professors, even the best of them, receive only a small salary--6000 francs at the Museum and the College de France,[6320] 7500 at the Sorbonne, 5000 in the provincial Faculties, 4000 or 3000 in the lycees, 2000, 1500 and 1200 in the communal colleges--just enough to live on. The highest functionaries live in a very modest way; each keeps body and soul together on a small salary which he earns by moderate work, without notable increase or decrease, in the expectation of gradual promotion or of a sure pension at the end.

There is no waste, the accounts being well kept; there are no sinecures, even in the libraries; no unfair treatment or notorious scandals. Envy, notions of equality scarcely exist; there are enough situations for petty ambitions and average merit, while there is scarcely any place for great ambitions or great merit. Eminent men serve the State and the public cheaply for a living salary, a higher rank in the Legion of Honor, sometimes for a seat in the Inst.i.tute, or for European fame in connection with a university, with no other recompense than the satisfaction of working according to conscience[6321] and of winning the esteem of twenty or thirty competent judges who, in France or abroad, are capable of appreciating their labor at its just value.[6322]

The last reason for accepting or tolerating the University; its work at home, or in its surroundings, develops gradually and more or less broadly according to necessities.--In 1815, there were 22,000 primary schools of every kind; in 1829,[6323] 30,000; and in 1850, 63,000. In 1815, 737,000 children were taught in them; in 1829, 1,357,000; and in 1850, 3,787,000. In 1815, there was only one normal school for the education of primary teachers; in 1850, there are 78. Consequently, whilst in 1827, 42 out of 100 conscripts could read, there were in 1877, 85; whilst in 1820, 34 out of 100 women could write their names on the marriage contract, in 1879 there are 70.--Similarly, in the lycees and colleges, the University which, in 1815, turned out 37,000 youths, turns out 54,000 in 1848, and 64,000 in 1865;[6324] many branches of study, especially history,[6325] are introduced into secondary instruction and bear good fruit.--Even in superior instruction which, through organization, remains languid, for parade, or in a rut, there are ameliorations; the State adds chairs to its Paris establishments and founds new Faculties in the provinces. In sum, an inquisitive mind capable of self-direction can, at least in Paris, acquire full information and obtain a comprehensive education on all subjects by turning the diverse university inst.i.tutions to account.--If there are very serious objections to the system, for example, regarding the boarding part of it (internat), the fathers who had been subject to it accept it for their sons. If there were very great defects in it, for example, the lack of veritable universities, the public which had not been abroad and ignores history did not perceive them. In vain does M.

Cousin, in relation to public instruction in Germany, in his eloquent report of 1834, as formerly Cuvier in his discreet report of 1811, point out this defect; in vain does M. Guizot, the minister, propose to remove it:

"I did not find," says he,[6326] "any strong public opinion which induced me to carry out any general and urgent measure in higher instruction. In the matter of superior instruction the public, at this time,... was not interested in any great idea, or prompted by any impatient want.... Higher education as it was organized and given, sufficed for the practical needs of society, which regarded it with a mixture of satisfaction and indifference."

In the matter of education, not only at this third stage but again for the first two stages, public opinion so far as aims, results, methods and limitations is concerned, was apathetic. That wonderful science which, in the eighteenth century, with Jean-Jacques, Condillac, Valentin, Hally, Abbe de l'Epee and so many others, sent forth such powerful and fruitful jets, had dried up and died out; transplanted to Switzerland and Germany, pedagogy yet lives but it is dead on its native soil.[6327] There is no longer in France any persistent research nor are there any fecund theories on the aims, means, methods, degrees and forms of mental and moral culture, no doctrine in process of formation and application, no controversies, no dictionaries and special manuals, not one well-informed and important Review, and no public lectures. Now an experimental science is simply the summing-up of many diverse experiences, freely attempted, freely discussed and verified. Through the forced results of the university monopoly there are no actual universities: among other results of the Napoleonic inst.i.tution, one could after 1808 note, the decadence of pedagogy and foresee its early demise. Neither parents, nor masters nor the young cared anything about it; outside of the system in which they live they imagine nothing; they are accustomed to it the same as to the house in which they dwell. They may grumble sometimes at the arrangement of the rooms, the low stories and narrow staircases, against bad lighting, ventilation and want of cleanliness, against the exactions of the proprietor and concierge; but, as for transforming the building, arranging it otherwise, reconstructing it in whole or in part, they never think of it. For, in the first place, they have no plan; and next, the house is too large and its parts too well united; through its ma.s.s and size it maintains itself and would still remain indefinitely if, all at once, in 1848, an unforeseen earthquake had not made breaches in its walls.

II. Educational monopoly of Church and State.

Law of 1850 and freedom of instruction.--Its apparent object and real effects.--Alliance of Church and State.--The real monopoly.--Ecclesiastical control of the University until 1859.--Gradual rupture of the Alliance.--The University again becomes secular.--Lay and clerical interests.

--Separation and satisfaction of both interests down to 1876.

--Peculiarity of this system.--State motives for taking the upper hand.--Parents, in fact, have no choice between two monopolies.--Original and forced decline of private inst.i.tutions.--Their ruin complete after 1850 owing to the too-powerful and double compet.i.tion of Church and State.

--The Church and the State sole surviving educators.

--Interested and doctrinal direction of the two educational systems.--Increasing divergence in both directions.--Their effect on youth.

The day after the 24th of February 1848,[6328] M. Cousin, meeting M.

de Remusat on the quay Voltaire, raised his arms towards heaven and exclaimed:

"Let us hurry and fall on our knees in front of the bishops--they alone can save us now!"

While M. Thiers, with equal vivacity, in the parliamentary committee exclaimed: "Cousin, Cousin, do you comprehend the lesson we have received? Abbe Dupanloup is right."[6329] Hence the new law.[6330] M.

Beugnot, who presented it, clearly explains its aims and object: the Government "must a.s.semble the moral forces of the country and unite them with each other to combat with and overthrow the common enemy," the anti-social party, "which, victorious, would have no mercy on anybody,"

neither on the University nor on the Church. Consequently, the University abandons its monopoly: the State is no longer the sole purveyor of public instruction; private schools and a.s.sociations may teach as they please. The government will no longer inspect their "education," but only "morality, hygiene, and salubrity;"[6331]--they are out of its jurisdiction and exempt from its taxes. Therefore, the government establishments and free establishments will no longer be dangerous adversaries, but "useful co-operators;" they will owe and give to each other "good advice and good examples;" it will maintain for both "an equal interest;" henceforth, its University "will be merely an inst.i.tution supported by it to quicken compet.i.tion and make this bear good fruit," and, to this end, it comes to an understanding with its princ.i.p.al compet.i.tor, the Church.

But in this coalition of the two powers it is the Church which has the best of it, takes the upper hand and points out the way. For, not only does she profit by the liberty decreed, and profit by it almost alone, founding in twenty years afterwards nearly one hundred ecclesiastical colleges and putting the Ignorantin brethren everywhere in the primary schools; but, again, by virtue of the law,[6332] she places four bishops or archbishops in the superior council of the University; by virtue of the law, she puts into each departmental academic council the bishop of the diocese and a priest selected by him; moreover, through her credit with the central government she enjoys all the administrative favors.

In short, from above and close at hand, she leads, keeps in check, and governs the lay University and, from 1849 to 1859, the priestly domination and interference, the bickering, the repressions, the dismissals,[6333] the cases of disgrace, are a revival of the system which, from 1821 to 1828, had already been severe. As under the Restoration, the Church had joined hands with the State to administrate the school-machine in concert with it; but, under the Restoration, she reserves to herself the upper hand, and it is she who works the machine rather than the State. In sum, under the name, the show, and the theoretical proclamation of liberty for all, the University monopoly is reorganized, if not by law, at least in fact, and in favor of the Church.

Towards 1859, and after the war in Italy, regarding the Pope and the temporal power, the hands which were joined now let go and then separate; there is a dissolution of partnership; their interests cease to agree. Two words are coined, both predestined to great fortune, on the one side the "secular" interest and on the other side the "clerical"

interest; henceforth, the government no longer subordinates the former to the latter and, under the ministry of M. Duruy, the direction of the University becomes frankly secular. Consequently, the entire educational system, in gross and in its princ.i.p.al features, is to resemble, until 1876, that of the of July.[6334] For sixteen years, the two great teaching powers, the spiritual and the temporal, unable to do better, are to support each other but act apart, each on its own ground and each in its own way; only the Church no longer acts through the toleration and gracious permission of the University, but through the legal abolition of the monopoly and by virtue of a written law. The whole composes a pa.s.sable regime, less oppressive than those that preceded it; in any event, the two millions of devout Catholics who consider unbelief as a terrible evil, the fathers and mothers who subordinate instruction to education,[6335] and desire above all things to preserve the faith of their children up to adult age, now find in the ecclesiastical establishments well-run hothouses and protected against draughts of modernity. One urgent need of the first order,[6336] legitimate, deeply felt by many men and especially by women, has received satisfaction; parents who do not experience this want, place their children in the lycees; in 1865, in the smaller seminaries and other ecclesiastical schools there are 54,000 pupils and in the State colleges and lycees 64,000,[6337] which two bodies balance each other.

But even that is a danger. For, naturally, the teaching State finds with regret that its clients diminish; it does not view the rival favorably which takes away so many of its pupils. Naturally also, in case of an electoral struggle, the Church favors the party which favors it, the effect of which is to expose it to ill-will and, in case of political defeat, to hostilities. Now, the chances are, that, should hostile rulers, in this case, attempt to strike it in its most vulnerable point, that of teaching, they might set aside liberty, and even toleration, and adopt the school machine of Napoleon in order to restore it as best they could, enlarge it, derive from it for their own profit and against the Church, whatever could be got out of it, to use with all their power according to the principles and intentions of the Convention and the Directory. Thus, the compromise accepted by Church and State is simply a provisional truce; to-morrow, this truce will be broken; the fatal French prejudice which erects the State into a national educator is ever present; after a partial and brief slackening of its energy, it will try to recover its ascendancy and recommence its ravages.--And, on the other hand, even under this regime, more liberal than its predecessor, real liberty is much restricted; instead of one monopoly, there are two.

Between two kinds of establishments, one secular, resembling a barracks, and the other ecclesiastical, resembling a seminary or convent, parents may choose and that is all. Ordinarily, if they prefer one, it is not because they consider it good, but because, in their opinion, the other is worse, while there is no third one at hand, built after a different type, with its own independent and special character, adapting itself to their tastes and accommodating itself to their necessities.