The Modern Regime, Volume 1 [Napoleon] The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5
by
Hippolyte A. Taine
Part 4 out of 8
natural with the State, equally indispensable in their way, and,
therefore, as legitimate as itself; it allowed them only a life on
trust, derived from above and from the center. But, since the State
created them, it might and ought to treat them as its creatures, keep
them indefinitely under its thumb, use them for its purposes, act
through them as through other agencies, and transform their chiefs
into functionaries of the central power.
III. Brilliant Statesman and Administrator.
The Organizer. - Influence of Napoleon's character and mind on his
internal and French system. - Exigencies of his external and European
rôle. - Suppression of all centers of combination and concord. -
Extension of the public domain and what it embraces. - Reasons for
maintaining the private domain. - The part of the individual. - His
reserved enclosure. - Outlets for him beyond that. - His talents are
enlisted in the service of public power. - Special aptitude and
temporary vigor, lack of balance, and doubtful future of the social
body thus formed.
A new France, not the chimerical, communistic, equalized, and Spartan
France of Robespierre and Saint-Just, but a possible real, durable,
and yet leveled and uniform France, logically struck out at one blow,
all of a piece, according to one general principle, a France,
centralized, administrative, and, save the petty egoistic play of
individuals, managed in one entire body from top to bottom, - in
short, the France which Richelieu and Louis XIV. had longed for, which
Mirabeau after 1790 had foreseen,[23] is now the work which the
theories of the monarchy and of the Revolution had prepared, and
toward which the final concurrence of events, that is to say, "the
alliance of philosophy and the saber," led the sovereign hands of the
First Consul.
Accordingly, considering his well-known character, the promptitude,
the activity, the reach, the universality, and the cast of his
intellect, he could not have proposed to himself a different work nor
reduced himself to a lower standard. His need of governing and of
administrating was too great; his capacity for governing and
administrating was too great: his was an exacting genius. - Moreover,
for the outward task that he undertook he required internally, not
only undisputed possession of all executive and legislative powers,
not only perfect obedience from all legal authorities, but, again, the
annihilation of all moral authority but his own, that is to say, the
silence of public opinion and the isolation of each individual, and
therefore the abolition, preventive and systematic, of any religious,
ecclesiastic, pedagogic, charitable, literary, departmental, or
communal initiative that might, now or in the future gather men
against him or alongside of him. Like a good general he secures his
rear. At strife with all Europe, he so arranges it as not to allow in
the France he drags along after him refractory souls or bodies which
might form platoons in his rear. Consequently, and through precaution,
he suppresses in advance all eventual rallying points or centers of
combination Henceforth, every wire which can stir up and bring a
company of men together for the same object terminates in his hands;
he holds in his firm grasp all these combined wires, guards them with
jealous care, in order to strain them to the utmost. Let no one
attempt to loosen them, and, above all, let no one entertain a thought
of getting hold of them; they belong to him and to him alone, and
compose the public domain, which is his domain proper.
But, alongside of his proper domain, he recognizes another in which he
himself assigns a limit to the complete absorption of all wills by his
own; he does not admit, of course in his own interest, that the public
power, at least in the civil order of things and in common practice,
should be illimitable nor, especially, arbitrary.[24] - This is due to
his not being an utopian or a theorist, like his predecessors of the
Convention, but a perspicacious statesman, who is in the habit of
using his own eyes. He sees things directly, in themselves; he does
not imagine them through book formulae or party phrases, by a process
of verbal reasoning, employing the gratuitous suppositions of
humanitarian optimism or the dogmatic prejudices of Jacobin nonsense.
He sees Man just as he is, not Man in himself, an abstract citizen,
the philosophic puppet of the Contrat Social, but the real individual,
the entire living man, with his profound instincts, his tenacious
necessities, which, whether tolerated or not by legislation, still
subsist and operate infallibly, and which the legislator must take
into consideration if he wants to turn them to account. - This
individual, a civilized European and a modern Frenchman, constituted
as he is by several centuries of tolerable police discipline, of
respected rights and hereditary property, must have a private domain,
an enclosed area, large or small, which belongs and is reserved to him
personally, to which the public power interdicts access and before
which it mounts guard to prevent other individuals from intruding on
it. Otherwise his condition seems intolerable to him; he is no longer
disposed to exert himself, to set his wits to work, or to enter upon
any enterprise. Let us be careful not to snap or loosen this powerful
and precious spring of action; let him continue to work, to produce,
to economize, if only that he may be in a condition to pay taxes; let
him continue to marry, to bring forth and raise up sons, if only to
serve the conscription. Let us ease his mind with regard to his
enclosure;[25] let him exercise full proprietorship over it and enjoy
it exclusively; let him feel himself at home in his own house in
perpetuity, safe from any intrusion, protected by the code and by the
courts, not alone against his enemies, but against the administration
itself. Let him in this well-defined, circumscribed abode be free to
turn round and range as he pleases, free to browse at will, and, if he
chooses, to consume all his hay himself. It is not essential that his
meadows should be very extensive: most men live with their nose to the
ground; very few look beyond a very narrow circle; men are not much
troubled by being penned up; the egoism and urgent needs of daily life
are already for them ready-made limits: within these natural barriers
they ask for nothing but to be allowed to graze in security. Let us
give them this assurance and leave them free to consult their own
welfare. - As to the rest, in very small number, more or less
imaginative, energetic, and ardent, there is, outside the enclosure,
an issue expressly provided for them: the new administrative and
military professions offer an outlet to their ambition and to their
vanity which, from the start, keeps on expanding until, suddenly, the
first Consul points to an infinite perspective on the horizon.[26]
According to an expression attributed to him, henceforth,
"the field is open to all talents,"
and hence all talents, gathered into the central current and
precipitated headlong through competition, swell with their inflow the
immensity of the public power.
This done, the principal features of modern France are traced; a tool
of a new and strange type arises, defines itself, and issues forth,
its structure determining its destiny. It consists of a social body
organized by a despot and for a despot, calculated for the use of one
man, excellent for action under the impulsion of a unique will, with a
superior intelligence, admirable so long as this intelligence remains
lucid and this will remains healthy. It is adapted to a military life
and not to civil life, and therefore badly balanced, hampered (géné)
in its development, exposed to periodical crises, condemned to
precocious debility, but viable for a long time, and, for the present
robust, alone able to bear the weight of the new reign and to furnish
for fifteen successive years the crushing labor, the conquering
obedience, the superhuman, murderous, insensate effort which its
master exacts.
IV. Napoleon's barracks.
General aspect and characteristics of the new State. - Contrast
between its structure and that of other contemporary or pre-existing
States. - The plurality, complexity, and irregularity of ancient
France. - The unity, simplicity, and regularity of modern France. - To
what class of works it belongs. - It is the modern masterpiece of the
classic spirit in the political and social order of things.
Let us take a nearer view of the master's idea and of the way in
which, at this moment, he figures to himself the society which is
assuming new shape in his hands. All the leading features of the plan
are fixed beforehand in his mind: they are already deeply graven on it
through his education and through his instinct. By virtue of this
instinct, which is despotic, by virtue of this education, which is
classic and Latin, he conceives human associations not in the modern
fashion, Germanic and Christian, as a concert of initiations starting
from below, but in the antique fashion, pagan and Roman, as a
hierarchy of authorities imposed from above. He puts his own spirit
into his civil institutions, the military spirit; consequently, he
constructs a huge barracks wherein, to begin with, he lodges thirty
million, men, women, and children, and, later on, forty-two million,
all the way from Hamburg to Rome.
The edifice is, of course, superb and of a new style. On comparing it
with other societies in surrounding Europe, and particularly France as
she was previous to 1789, the contrast is striking. - Everywhere else
the social edifice is a composition of many distinct structures -
provinces, cities, seignories, churches, universities, and
corporations. Each has begun by being a more or less isolated block of
buildings where, on an enclosed area, a population has lived apart.
Little by little the barriers have given way; either they have been
broken in or have tumbled down of their own accord; passages have been
made between one and the other and new additions have been put up; at
last, these scattered buildings have all become connected and soldered
on as annexes to the central pile. But they combine with it only
through a visible and clumsy juxtaposition, through incomplete and
bizarre communications: the vestiges of their former independence are
still apparent athwart their actual dependence. Each still rests on
its own primitive and appropriate foundations; its grand lines
subsist; its main work is often almost intact. In France, on the eve
of 1789, it is easily recognized what she formerly was; for example,
it is clear that Languedoc and Brittany were once sovereign States,
Strasbourg a sovereign town, the Bishop of Mende and the Abbess of
Remiremont, sovereign princes;[27] every seignior, laic, or
ecclesiastic, was so in his own domain, and he still possessed some
remnants of public power. In brief, we see thousands of states within
the State, absorbed, but not assimilated, each with its own statutes,
its own legal customs, its own civil law, its own weights and
measures; several with special privileges and immunities; some with
their own jurisdiction and their own peculiar administration, with
their own imposts and tariffs like so many more or less dismantled
fortresses, but whose old feudal, municipal, or provincial walls still
rose lofty and thick on the soil comprehended within the national
enclosure.
Nothing could be more irregular than this total aggregate thus formed;
it is not really an entire whole, but an agglomeration. No plan, good
or bad, has been followed out ; the architecture is of ten different
styles and of ten different epochs. That of the dioceses is Roman and
of the fourth century; that of the seignories is Gothic and of the
ninth century; one structure dates from the Capetians, another from
the Valois, and each bears the character of its date. Because each has
been built for itself and with no regard to the others, adapted to an
urgent service according to the exigencies or requirements of time,
place, and circumstance ; afterward, when circumstances changed, it
had to adapt itself to other services, and this constantly from
century to century, under Philippe le Bel, under Louis XI., under
Francis I., under Richelieu, under Louis XIV., through constant
revision which never consists of entire destruction, through a series
of partial demolitions and of partial reconstructions, in such a way
as to maintain itself, during the transformation, in conciliating,
well or ill, new demands and rooted habits, in reconciling the work of
the passing generation with the works of generations gone before. -
The central seignory itself is merely a donjon of the tenth century, a
military tower of which the enclosure has extended so as to embrace
the entire territory, and of which the other buildings, more or less
incorporated with it, have become prolongations. - A similar medley of
constructions - disfigured by such mutilations, adjuncts, and patches,
a pell-mell so complicated with such incongruous bits and fragments -
can be comprehended only by antiquaries and historians; ordinary
spectators- - the public - pronounce it absurd; it finds no favor with
that class of reasoners who, in social architecture as in physical
architecture, repudiate disorder, posit theories, deduce consequences,
and require that every work shall proceed from the application of a
simple idea.
And worse still, not only is good taste offended but, again, good
sense often murmurs. Practically, the edifice fails in its object,
for, erected for men to dwell in, it is in many places scarcely
habitable. Because it endures it is found superannuated, ill-adapted
to prevailing customs ; it formerly suited, and still suits, the
feudal, scattered, and militant way of living; hence it no longer
suits the unity and repose of modern life. New-born rights obtain no
place in it alongside of established rights; it is either not
sufficiently transformed or it has been transformed in an opposite
sense, in such a way as to be inconvenient or unhealthy, badly
accommodating people who are useful and giving good accommodations to
useless people, costing too much to keep up and causing discomfort and
discontent to nearly all its occupants. - In France, in particular,
the best apartments, especially that of the King, are for a century
past too high and too large, too sumptuous and too expensive. Since
Louis XIV. these have imperceptibly ceased to be government and
business bureaus; they have become in their disposition, decoration,
and furnishing, saloons for pomp and conversation, the occupants of
which, for lack of other employment, delight in discussing
architecture and in tracing plans on paper for an imaginary edifice in
which everybody will find himself comfortable. Now, underneath these,
everybody finds himself uncomfortable, the bourgeoisie in its small
scanty lodgings on the ground-floor and the people in their holes in
the cellar, which are low and damp, wherein light and air never
penetrate. Innumerable vagabonds and vagrants are still worse off,
for, with no shelter or fireside, they sleep under the stars, and as
they are without anything to care for, they are disposed to pull
everything down. - Under the double pressure of insurrection and
theory the demolition begins, while the fury of destruction goes on
increasing until nothing is left of the razed edifice but the soil it
stood on.
The new one rises on this cleared ground and, historically as well as
structurally, it differs from all the others. - In less than ten years
it springs up and is finished according to a plan which, from the
first day, is definite and complete. It forms one unique, vast,
monumental block, in which all branches of the service are lodged
under one roof; in addition to the national and general services
belonging to the public power, we find here others also, local and
special, which do not belong to it, such as worship, education,
charity, fine arts, literature, departmental and communal interests,
each installed in a distinct compartment. All the compartments are
ordered and arranged alike, forming a circle around the magnificent
central apartment, with which each is in communication by a bell; as
soon as the bell rings and the sound spreads from division to sub-
division, the entire service, from the chief clerk down to the lowest
employee, is instantly in motion; in this respect the arrangement, as
regards despatch, co-ordination, exactitude, and working facilities,
is admirable.[28]
On the other hand, its advantages and attractions for employees and
aspirants of every kind and degree are not mediocre. There is no
separation between the stories, no insurmountable barrier or enclosure
between large and small apartments; all, from the least to the finest,
from the outside as well as from the inside, have free access.
Spacious entrances around the exterior terminate in broad, well-
lighted staircases open to the public; everybody can clamber up that
pleases, and to mount these one must clamber; from top to bottom there
is no other communication than that which they present. There is no
concealed and privileged passage, no private stairway or false door;
glancing along the whole rectilinear, uniform flight, we behold the
innumerable body of clerks, functionaries, supernumeraries, and
postulants, an entire multitude, ranged tier beyond tier and
attentive; nobody advances except at the word and in his turn. -
Nowhere in Europe are human lives so well regulated, within lines of
demarcation so universal, so simple, and so satisfactory to the eye
and to logic: the edifice in which Frenchmen are henceforth to move
and act is regular from top to bottom, in its entirety as well as in
its details, outside as well as inside; its stories, one above the
other, are adjusted with exact symmetry; its juxtaposed masses form
pendants and counterpoise; all its lines and forms, every dimension
and proportion, all its props and buttresses combine, through their
mutual dependencies, to compose a harmony and to maintain an
equilibrium. In this respect the structure is classic, belonging to
the same family of productions which the same spirit, guided by the
same method, had produced in Europe for the previous one hundred and
fifty years.[29] Its analogues, in the physical order of things, are
the architectural productions of Mansard, Le Notre, and their
successors, from the structures and gardens of Versailles down to and
embracing the Madeleine and the Rue de Rivoli. In the intellectual
order, its analogues consist of the literary forms of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, the superb oratorical prose and correct,
eloquent poetry, especially epics and tragedies, including those still
manufactured according to rule about the year 1810. It corresponds to
these and forms their pendant in the political and social order of
things, because it emanates from the same deliberate purpose. Four
constitutions, in the same style, preceded it; but these were good
only on paper, while this one stands firm on the ground. For the first
time in modern history we see a society due to ratiocination and, at
the same time, substantial; the new France, under these two heads, is
the masterpiece of the classic spirit.
V. Modeled after Rome.
Its analogue in the antique world. - The Roman State from Diocletian
to Constantine. - Causes and bearing of this analogy. - Survival of
the Roman idea in Napoleon's mind. - The new Empire of the West.
Nevertheless, if we go back in time, beyond modern times, beyond the
Middle Ages, as far as the antique world, we encounter during the
Roman emperors Diocletian's and Constantine's era another monument
whose architecture, equally regular, is developed on a still grander
scale: back then we are in the natal atmosphere and stand on the natal
soil of the classic spirit. - At this time, the human material, more
reduced and better prepared than in France, existed similarly in the
requisite condition. At this date, we likewise see at work the
prearranging reasoning-faculty
* which simplifies in order to deduce,
* which leaves out historic customs and local diversities,
* which considers the basic human being,
* which treats individuals as units and the people as totals,
* which forcibly applies its general outlines to all special lives,
and
* which glories in constituting, legislating, and administering by
rule according to the measurements of square and compass.
At this date, in effect, the turn of mind, the talent, the ways of the
Roman architect, his object, his resources and his means of execution,
are already those of his French successor; the conditions around him
in the Roman world are equivalent; behind him in Roman history the
precedents, ancient and recent, are almost the same.
In the first place,[30] there is, since emperor Augustus, the
absolute monarchy, and, since the Antonines, administrative
centralization the result of which is that
* all the old national and municipal communities are broken up or
crushed out,
* all collective existences chilled or extinguished,
* local patriotism slowly worn away,
* an increasing diminution of individual initiative,
and, under the invasive interference, direction, and providence of the
State, one hundred millions of men become more and more passive and
separated from each other.[31]
And as a result, in full enjoyment of peace and internal prosperity
under the appearances of union, force, and health, latent feebleness,
and, as in France on the approach of 1789, a coming dissolution.
There is next, as after 1789 in France, the total collapse, not from
below and among the people, but from above and through the army, a
worse collapse than in France, prolonged for fifty years of anarchy,
civil wars, local usurpations, ephemeral tyrannies, urban seditions,
rural jacqueries, brigandage, famines, and invasions along the whole
frontier, with such a ruin of agriculture and other useful activities,
with such a diminution of public and private capital, with such a
destruction of human lives that, in twenty years, the number of the
population seems to have diminished one half.[32] There is, finally,
as after 1799, in France, the re-establishment of order brought about
more slowly, but by the same means, the army and a dictatorship, in
the rude hands of three or four great military parvenus, Pannonians or
Dalmatians, Bonapartes of Sirmium or of Scutari, they too, of a new
race or of intact energy, adventurers and children of their own deeds,
the last Diocletian, like Napoleon, a restorer and an innovator.
Around them, as around Napoleon, to aid them in their civil
undertakings, is a crowd of expert administrators and eminent
jurisconsults, all practitioners, statesmen, and businessmen, and yet
men of culture, logicians, and philosophers. They were imbued with the
double governmental and humanitarian view, which for three centuries
Greek speculation and Roman practice had introduced into minds and
imaginations. This view, at once leveling and authoritative, tending
to exaggerate the attributes of the State and the supreme power of the
prince,[33] was nevertheless inclined
* to put natural right in the place of positive law,[34]
* to preferring equity and logic to antiquity and to custom,
* to reinstate the dignity of man among the qualities of mankind,
* to enhance the condition of the slave, of the provincial, of the
debtor, of the bastard, of woman, of the child, and
* to recover for the human community all its inferior members, foreign
or degraded, which the ancient constitution of the family and of the
city had excluded from it.
Therefore Napoleon could find the outlines of his construction in the
political, legislative, and judicial organizations extending from
Diocletian to Constantine, and beyond these down to Theodosius. At the
base, popular sovereignty;[35] the powers of the people delegated
unconditionally to one man. This omnipotence conferred, theoretically
or apparently, through the free choice of citizens, but really through
the will of the army. No protection against the Prince's arbitrary
edict, except a no less arbitrary rescript from the same hand. His
successor designated, adopted, and qualified by himself. A senate for
show, a council of state for administration; all local powers
conferred from above; cities under tutelage. All subjects endowed with
the showy title of citizen, and all citizens reduced to the humble
condition of taxpayers and of people under control. An administration
of a hundred thousand officials taking all services into its hands,
comprising public instruction, public succor, and public supplies of
food, together with systems of worship. This was at first pagan cults,
and after Constantine, the Christian cult. All these services were
classified, ranked, co-coordinated, carefully defined in such a way as
not to encroach on each other, and carefully combined in such a way as
to complete each other. An immense hierarchy of transferable
functionaries was kept at work from above on one hundred and eighty
square leagues of territory; thirty populations of different race and
language-Syrians, Egyptians, Numidians, Spaniards, Gauls, Britons,
Germans, Greeks, Italians - subject to the same uniform Régime. The
territory was divided like a checker-board, on arithmetical and
geometrical principles, into one hundred or one hundred and twenty
small provinces; old nations or States dismembered and purposely cut
up so as to put an end forever to natural, spontaneous, and viable
groups. A minute and verified census taking place every fifteen years
to correctly assign land taxes. An official and universal language; a
State system of worship, and, very soon, a Church and State orthodoxy.
A systematic code of laws, full and precise, admirable for the rule of
private life, a sort of moral geometry in which the theorems,
rigorously linked together, are attached to the definitions and axioms
of abstract justice. A scale of grades, one above the other, which
everybody may ascend from the first to the last; titles of nobility
more and more advanced, suited to more and more advanced functions;
spectabiles, illustres, clarissimi, perfectissimi, analogous to
Napoleon's Barons, Counts, Dukes, and Princes. A programme of
promotion once exhibiting, and on which are still seen, common
soldiers, peasants, a shepherd, a barbarian, the son of a cultivator
(colon), the grandson of a slave, mounting gradually upward to the
highest dignities, becoming patrician, Count, Duke, commander of the
cavalry, Cœsar, Augustus, and donning the imperial purple, enthroned
amid the most sumptuous magnificence and the most elaborate ceremonial
prostrations, a being called God during his lifetime, and after death
adored as a divinity, and dead or alive, a complete divinity on
earth.[36]
So colossal an edifice, so admirably adjusted, so mathematical, could
not wholly perish; its hewn stones were too massive, too nicely
squared; too exactly fitted, and the demolisher's hammer could not
reach down to its deepest foundations. - This one, through its shaping
and its structure, through its history and its duration, resembles the
stone edifices which the same people at the same epoch elevated on the
same soil, the aqueducts, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, the
Coliseum, the baths of Diocletian and of Caracalla.
The medieval man, using their intact foundations and their shattered
fragments, built here and there, haphazard, according to the
necessities of the moment, planting his Gothic towers between
Corinthian columns against the panels of walls still standing.[37]
But, under his incoherent masonry, he observed the beautiful forms,
the precious marbles, the architectural combinations, the symmetrical
taste of an anterior and superior art; he felt that his own work was
rude. The new world, to all thinking minds, was miserable compared
with the old one; its languages seemed a patois (crude dialect), its
literature mere stammering or driveling, its law a mass of abuses or a
mere routine, its feudality anarchy, and its social arrangements,
disorder. - In vain had the medieval man striven to escape through all
issues, by the temporal road and by the spiritual road, by the
universal and absolute monarchy of the German Cesars, and by the
universal and absolute monarchy of the Roman pontiffs. At the end of
the fifteenth century the Emperor still possessed the golden globe,
the golden crown, the scepter of Charlemagne and of Otho the Great,
but, after the death of Frederick II., he was nothing more than a
majesty for show; the Pope still wore the tiara, still held the
pastoral staff and the keys of Gregory VII. and of Innocent III., but,
after the death of Boniface VIII., he was nothing more than a majesty
of the Church. Both abortive restorations had merely added ruins to
ruins, while the phantom of the ancient empire alone remained erect
amid so many fragments. Grand in its outlines and decorations, it
stood there, august, dazzling, in a halo, the unique masterpiece of
art and of reason, as the ideal form of human society. For ten
centuries this specter haunted the medieval epoch, and nowhere to such
an extent as in Italy.[38]
It reappears the last time in 1800, starting up in and taking firm
hold of the magnificent, benighted imagination of the great
Italian,[39] to whom the opportunity afforded the means for executing
the grand Italian dream of the Middle Ages; it is according to this
retrospective vision that the Diocletian of Ajaccio, the Constantine
of the Concordat, the Justinian of the Civil Code, the Theodosius of
the Tuileries and of St. Cloud reconstructed France.
This does not mean that he copies - he restores; his conception is not
plagiarism, but a case of atavism; it comes to him through the nature
of his intellect and through racial traditions. In the way of social
and political conceptions, as in literature and in art, his
spontaneous taste is ultra-classic. We detect this in his mode of
comprehending the history of France; State historians, "encouraged by
the police," must make it to order; they must trace it "from the end
of Louis XIV. to the year VIII," and their object must be to show how
superior the new architecture is to the old one.[40] "The constant
disturbance of the finances must be noted, the chaos of the provincial
assemblies, . . . the pretensions of the parliaments, the lack of
energy and order in the administration, that parti-colored France with
no unity of laws or of administration, being rather a union of twenty
kingdoms than one single State, so that one breathes on reaching the
epoch in which people enjoy the benefits of the unity of the laws, of
the administration, and of the territory." In effect, he breathes ; in
thus passing from the former to the latter spectacle, he finds real
intellectual pleasure; his eyes, offended with Gothic disorder, turn
with relief and satisfaction to majestic simplicity and classic
regularity; his eyes are those of a Latin architect brought up in the
"École de Rome."
This is so true that, outside of this style, he admits of no other.
Societies of a different type seem to him absurd. He misconceives
their local propriety and the historical reasons for their existence.
He takes no account of their solidity. He is going to dash himself
against Spain and against Russia, and he has no comprehension whatever
of England.[41] -This is so true that, wherever he places his hand he
applies his own social system; he imposes on annexed territories and
on vassal[42] countries the same uniform arrangements, his own
administrative hierarchy, his own territorial divisions and sub-
divisions, his own conscription, his civil code, his constitutional
and ecclesiastical system, his university, his system of equality and
promotion, the entire French system, and, as far as possible, the
language, literature, drama, and even the spirit of his France, - in
brief, civilization as he conceives it, so that conquest becomes
propaganda, and, as with his predecessors, the Cesars of Rome, he
sometimes really fancies that the establishment of his universal
monarchy is a great benefit to Europe.
_____________________________________________________________________
Notes:
[1] De Tocqueville, "L'Ancien régime et la Revolution." p. 64 and
following pages, also p.354 and following pages. - "The Ancient
Régime," p. 368.
[2] "The Revolution," I., book I., especially pp. 16, 17, 55, 61, 62-
65. (Laffont I., 326, 354, 357 to 360.)
[3] "The Ancient Regime," pp.- 36-59. (Laff. I. pp. 33-48.)
[4] Ibid., pp. 72-77. (Laff. I. pp. 59 to 61.)
[5] Ibid., pp. 78-82. (Laff. I. pp. 50-52)
[6] Cf. Frédéric Masson, "Le Marquis de Grignan," vol. I.
[7] The Revolution," I., p. 161 and following pages; II., book VI.,
ch. I., especially p. 80 and following pages. (Laffont I. 428 to 444,
632 and II 67 to 69.)
[8] Ibid., I., P.193 and following pages, and p.226 and following
pages.(Ed. Laffont. I. 449 to 452, 473 to 481.)
[9] "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de
France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. I., 148 (in
relation to the institution prefects and sub-prefects): "The
perceptible good resulting from this change was the satisfaction
arising from being delivered in one day from a herd of insignificant
men, mostly without any merit or shadow of capacity and to who the
administration of department and arrondissement had been surrendered
for the past ten years. As nearly all of them sprung from the lowest
ranks in society, they were only the more disposed to make the weight
of their authority felt."
[10] Guyot, "Répertoire de jurisprudence" (1785), article King: "It is
a maxim of feudal law that the veritable ownership of lands, the
domain, directum dominium, is vested in the dominant seignior or
suzerain. The domain in use, belonging to the vassal or tenant,
affords him really no right except to its produce."
[11] Luchaire," Histoire des institutions monarchiques de la France
sous les premiers Capétiens," I., 28, 46. (Texts of Henry I., Philip
I., Louis VI., and Louis VII.) "A divine minister." - (Kings are)
"servants of the kingdom of God." - "Gird on the ecclesiastical sword
for the punishment of the wicked." - " Kings and priests alone, by
ecclesiastical ordination, are made sacred by the anointing of holy
oils."
[12] "The Revolution," III., p.94. (Laffont II, p. 75)
[13] Janssen, "L'Allemagne à la fin du moyen âge " (French
translation), I., 457. (On the introduction of Roman law into
Germany.) - Declaration of the jurists at the Diet of Roncaglia: "Quod
principi placuit, legis habet vigorem." - Edict of Frederick I., 1165:
"Vestigia praedecessorum suorum, divorum imperatorum, magni
Constantini scilicet et Justiniani et Valentini, . . . sacras eorum
leges, . . . divina oracula. . . . Quodcumque imperator constituerit,
vel cognoscens decreverit, vel edicto praeceperit, legem esse
constat." - Frederick II.: "Princeps legibus solutus est." - Louis of
Bavaria: "Nos qui sumus supra jus."
[14] Guyot, ibid., article Régales. "The great 'régales,' majora
regalia, are those which belong to the King, jure singulari et
proprio, and which are incommunicable to another, considering that
they cannot be divorced from the scepter, being the attributes of
sovereignty, such as . . . the making of laws, the interpretation or
change of these, the last appeal from the decisions of magistrates,
the creation of offices, the declaration of war or of peace, . . . the
coining of money, the augmentation of titles or of values, the
imposition of taxes on the subjects, . . . the exemption of certain
persons from these, the award of pardon for crimes, . . . the creation
of nobles, the foundation of universities, . . . the assembling of the
états-généraux or provinciaux, etc." - Bossuet, "Politique tirée de
l'Écriture sainte": The entire state exists in the person of the
prince." - Louis XIV., "Œuvres," I., 50 (to his son): "You should be
aware that kings can naturally dispose fully and freely of all
possessions belonging as well to persons of the church as to laymen,
to make use of at all times with wise economy, that is to say,
according to the general requirements of their government." - Sorel,
"L'Europe et la Révolution française," I., 231 (Letter of the
"intendant" Foucault): "It is an illusion, which cannot proceed from
anything but blind preoccupation, that of making any distinction
between obligations of conscience and the obedience which is due to
the King."
[15] "The Ancient Régime," p.9 and following pages. - "Correspondance
de Mirabeau et du Comte de le Marck," II., 74 (Note by Mirabeau, July
3, 1790): "Previous to the present revolution, royal authority was
incomplete: the king was compelled to humor his nobles, to treat with
the parliaments,, to be prodigal of favors to the court."
[16] "The Revolution," III., p.318. (Laff.II. p. 237-238). - " The
Ancient Régime," p. 10 (Laff. I. 25n.) Speech by the Chancellor
Séguier, 1775: "Our kings have themselves declared that they are
fortunately powerless to attack property."
[17] Rousseau's text in the "Contrat Social." - On the meaning and
effect of this principle cf "The Revolution," I., 217 and following
pages, and III., book VI., ch. I. Laff. 182-186 et II. 47 to 74).
[18] The opinion, or rather the resignation which confers omnipotence
on the central power, goes back to the second half of the fifteenth
century, after the Hundred Years' war, and is due to that war; the
omnipotence of the king was then the only refuge against the English
invaders, and the ravages of the Écorcheurs. - Cf. Fortescue, "In
leges Angliœ," and" "The Difference between an Absolute and a Limited
Monarchy" (end of the fifteenth century), on the difference at this
date between the English and the French government. - The same
decision is found in the dispatches of the Venetian ambassadors of
this date: "In France everything is based on the will of the king.
Nobody, whatever might be his conscientious scruples, would dare
express an opinion opposed to his. The French respect their king to
such an extent that they would not only sacrifice their property for
him, but again their souls." (Janssen, "L'Allemagne à la fin du moyen
âge. I. 484.) - As to the passage of the monarchical to the democratic
idea, we see it plainly in the following quotations from Restif de la
Bretonne: "I entertained no doubt that the king could legally oblige
any man to give me his wife or his daughter, and everybody in my
village (Sacy in Burgundy) thought so too." ("Monsieur Nicolas," I.,
443.) - In relation to the September massacres: "No, I do not pity
them, those fanatical priests. . . When a community or its majority
wants anything, it is right. The minority is always culpable, even
when right morally. Common sense is that is needed to appreciate that
truth. It is indisputable that the nation has the power to sacrifice
even an innocent person." ("Nuits de Paris," XVth, p.377.)
[19] "The Revolution," III., 393. (Laff. II. p. 291)
[20] "Contrat Social," book 1st, ch. III.: "It is accordingly
essential that, for the enunciation of the general will, no special
organization should exist in the State, and that the opinion of each
citizen should accord with that. Such was the unique and sublime law
of the great Lycurgus."
[21] "The Revolution," I., 170. (Laff. I. 433.)
[22] Ibid., II., 93; III., 78-82. (Laff. I. p. 632 and II. pp. 65-68.)
[23] "Correspondance de Mirabeau et du Comte de la Marck,"II., 74
(Letter of Mirabeau to the King, July 3, 1790): "Compare the new state
of things with the ancient régime. . . . One portion of the acts of
the national assembly (and that the largest) is evidently favorable to
monarchical government. Is it to have nothing, then, to have no
parliaments, no provincial governments, no privileged classes, no
clerical bodies, no nobility? The idea of forming one body of citizens
would have pleased Richelieu: this equalized surface facilitates the
exercise of power. Many years of absolute rule could not have done so
much for royal authority as this one year of revolution." - Sainte-
Beuve, "Port-Royal," V., 25 (M. Harlay conversing with the supérieure
of Port-Royal): "People are constantly talking about Port-Royal, about
these Port-Royal gentlemen: the King dislikes whatever excites talk.
Only lately he caused M. Arnaud to be informed that he did not approve
of the meetings at his house; that there is no objection to his seeing
all sorts of people indifferently like everybody else, but why should
certain persons always be found in his rooms and such an intimate
association among these gentlemen? . . . The King does not want any
rallying point; a headless assemblage in a State is always
dangerous."- Ibid., p.33: "The reputation of this establishment was
too great. People were anxious to put their children in it. Persons of
rank sent theirs there. Everybody expressed satisfaction with it. This
provided it with friends who joined those of the establishment and who
together formed a platoon against the State. The King would not
consent to this: he regarded such unions as dangerous in a State."
[24] "Napoleon Ire et ses lois civiles," by Honoré Pérouse, 280: Words
of Napoleon: "I have for a long time given a great deal of thought and
calculation to the re-establishment of the social edifice. I am to-day
obliged to watch over the maintenance of public liberty. I have no
idea of the French people becoming serfs." -"The prefects are wrong in
straining their authority." - "The repose and freedom of citizens
should not depend on the exaggeration or arbitrariness of a mere
administrator." - "Let authority be felt by the people as little as
possible and not bear down on them needlessly." - (Letters of January
15, 1806, March 6, 1807, January 12, 1809, to Fouché, and of March 6,
1807, to Regnault.) -Thibaudeau, "Mémoires sur le Consulat," P. 178
(Words of the first consul before the council of state): "True civil
liberty depends on the security of property. In no country can the
rate of the tax-payer be changed every year. A man with 3000 francs
income does not know how much he will have left to live on the
following year; his entire income may be absorbed by the assessment on
it. . . A mere clerk, with a dash of his pen, may overcharge you
thousands of francs... Nothing has ever been done in France in behalf
of real estate. Whoever has a good law passed on the cadastre
(official valuation of all the land in France) will deserve a statue."
[25] Honoré Pérouse, Ibid, 274 (Speech of Napoleon to the council of
state on the law on mines):" "Myself, with many armies at my
disposition, I could not take possession of any one's field, for the
violation of the right of property in one case would be violating it
in all. The secret is to have mines become actual property, and hence
sacred in fact and by law." - Ibid., 279:" "What is the right of
property? It is not only the right of using but, again, of abusing it.
. . . One must always keep in mind the advantage of owning property.
The best protection to the owner of property is the interest of the
individual; one may always rely on his activity. . . . A government
makes a great mistake in trying to be too paternal; liberty and
property are both ruined by over-solicitude." -"If the government
prescribes the way in which property shall be used it no longer
exists.". - Ibid., 284 (Letters of Aug.21 and Sept. 7, 1809, on
expropriations by public authority): "It is indispensable that the
courts should supervise, stop expropriation, receive complaints of and
guarantee property-owners against the enterprises of our prefects, our
prefecture councils and all other agents. . . . Expropriation is a
judicial proceeding.. . . I cannot conceive how France can have
proprietors if anybody can be deprived of his field simply by an
administrative decision." - In relation to the ownership of mines, to
the cadastre, to expropriation, and to the portion of property which a
man might bequeath, Napoleon was more liberal than his jurists. Madame
de Staël, "Dix années d'exil," ch. XVIII. (Napoleon conversing with
the tribune Gallois): "Liberty consists of a good civil code, while
modern nations care for nothing but property." - "Correspondance,"
letter to Fouché, Jan. 15, 1805. (This letter gives a good summary of
his ideas on government.) "In France, whatever is not forbidden is
allowed, and nothing can be forbidden except by the laws, by the
courts, or police measures in all matters relating to public order and
morality."
[26] Roederer, "Œuvres complètes," III., 339 (Speech by the First
Consul, October 21, 1800): "Rank, now, is a recompense for every
faithful service - the great advantage of equality, which has
converted 20,000 lieutenancies, formerly useless in relation to
emulation, into the legitimate ambition and honorable reward of
400,000 soldiers." - Lafayette, "Mémoires," V., 350: "Under Napoleon,
the soldiers said, he has been promoted King of Naples, of Holland, of
Sweden, or of Spain, as formerly it was said that a than had been
promoted sergeant in this or that company."
[27] "The Ancient Régime," book I., ch .2, the Structure of Society,
especially pp.19-21. (Laff. I. p. 21-22)
[28] Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène" - Napoleon, speaking of his imperial
organization, said that he had made the most compact government, one
with the quickest circulation and the most nervous energy, that ever
existed. And, he remarked, nothing but this would have answered in
overcoming the immense difficulties around us, and for effecting the
wonderful things we accomplished. The organization of prefectures,
their action, their results, were admirable and prodigious. The same
impulsion affected at the same time more than forty millions of men,
and, aided by centers of local activity, the action was as rapid at
every extremity as at the heart."
[29] "The Ancient Régime," book III., chs. 2 and 3. (Laff. I, pp. 139
to 151 and pp. 153 to 172.)
[30] Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chs. I, 2, 3, and
13. - Duruy, Histoire des Romains" (illustrated edition), tenth
period, chs. 82, 83, 84, and 85; twelfth period, chs. 95 and 99;
fourteenth period, ch. 104. - (The reader will find in these two
excellent works the texts and monuments indicated to which it is
necessary to resort for a direct and satisfactory impression.)
[31] See in Plutarch (Principles of Political Government) the
situation of a Greek city under the Antonines.
[32] Gibbon, ch. 10. - Duruy, ch. 95. (Decrease of the population of
Alexandria under Gallien, according to the registers of the alimentary
institution, letter of the bishop Dionysius.)
[33] "Digest," I., 4, I.: "Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem,
utpote, cum lege regia, quœ de imperio ejus lata est, populus ei et in
eum omne suum imperium et potestatem conferat. Quodcumque igitur
imperator per epistolam et subscriptionem statuit, vel cognoscens
decrevit, vel de plano interlocutus est, vel edicto prœcepit, legis
habet vigorem." (Extracts from Ulpian.) - Gaius, Institutes, I., 5:
"Quod imperator constituit, non dubium est quin id vicem legis
obtineat, quum ipse imperator per legem imperium obtineat."
[34] "Digest," I, 2. (Extracts from Ulpian): "Jus est a justitia
appellatum; nam, ut eleganter Celsus definit, jus est ars boni et
œqui. Cujus merito quis nos sacerdotes appellat: justitiam namque
colimus, et boni et œqui notitiam profitemur, œquum ab iniquo
separantes, licitum ab illicito discernentes, . . . veram, nisi
fallor, philosophiam, non simulatam affectantes. . . . Juris prœcepta
sunt hœc: honeste vivere, alterum non 1œdere, suum cuique tribuere." -
cf. Duruy, 12th period, ch. 87.
[35] Cf., on this immemorial principle of the entire body of Roman
public law, cf. Fustel de Coulanges, "Histoire des institutions
politiques et privées de l'ancienne France," vol. I., book II., ch. I,
p.66 and following pages.
[36] Read the "Notitia dignitatum tam civilium quam militarium in
partibus orientis et occidentis." It is the imperial almanac for the
beginning of the fifth century. There are eleven ministers at the
centre, each with his bureaux, divisions, subdivisions and squads of
superposed functionaries,
[37] Cf. Piranesi's engravings.
38 Cf., among other clues see Dante's: "De Monarchia".
[39] We can trace in Napoleon's brain and date the formation of this
leading idea. At first, it is simply a classic reminiscence, as with
his contemporaries; but suddenly it takes a turn and has an
environment in his mind which is lacking in theirs, and which prevents
the idea from remaining a purely literary phrase. From the beginning
he speaks of Rome in the fashion of a Rienzi. (Proclamation of May 20,
1796.) "We are the friends of every people, and especially of the
Brutuses, the Scipios, and of the great men whom we have chosen as
models. To re-establish the Capitol, to place there with honor the
statues of heroes who render it famous, to arouse the Roman people
benumbed by centuries of slavery, such will be the fruit of our
victories." - Fifteen months afterwards, on becoming master of Italy,
his historic meditations turn into positive ambition henceforth, the
possession of Italy and of the Mediterranean is to be with him a
central and preponderant idea. (Letter to the Directory, Aug. 16,
1797, and correspondence on the subject of Corsica, Sardinia, Naples,
and Genoa; letters to the pasha of Scutari, to the Maniotes, etc.)
"The islands of Corfu, Zante, and Cephalonia are of more interest to
us than all Italy put together. . . . The Turkish empire is daily
tottering; the possession of these islands will enable us to support
it as long as possible, or to take our portion of it. The time is not
remote when we shall feel that, for the real destruction of England,
we must get possession of Egypt." Formerly, the Mediterranean was a
Roman lake; it must become a French lake. (Cf. "Souvenirs d'un
Sexagénaire," by Arnault, vol. IV., p.102, on his dream, in 1798, of
making Paris a colossal Rome.) - At this same date, his conception of
the State is fixed and wholly Roman. (Conversations with Miot, June
1797, and letter to Talleyrand, Sep. 19, 1797.) "I do not see but one
thing in fifty years well defined, and that is the sovereignty of the
people. . . . The organization of the French nation is still only
sketched out. . . .The power of the government, with the full latitude
I give to it, should be considered as really representing the nation."
In this government, "the legislative power, without rank in the
republic, deaf and blind to all around it, would not be ambitious and
would no longer inundate us with a thousand chance laws, worthless on
account of their absurdity." It is evident that he describes in
anticipation his future senate and legislative corps. - Repeatedly,
the following year, and during the expedition into Egypt, he presents
the Romans as an example to his soldiers, and views himself as a
successor to Scipio and Cœsar. - (Proclamation of June 22, 1798.): "Be
as tolerant to the ceremonies enjoined by the Koran as you are for the
religion of Moses and Jesus. The Roman legions protected all
religions." - (Proclamation of May 10, 1798.) " The Roman legions that
you have often imitated but not yet equaled fought Carthage in turn on
this wall and in the vicinity of Zama." - Carthage at this time is
England: his hatred of this community of merchants which destroys his
fleet at Aboukir, which forces him to raise the siege of Saint-Jean
d'Acre, which holds on to Malta, which robs him of his substance, his
patrimony, his Mediterranean, is that of a Roman consul against
Carthage; it leads him to conquer all western Europe against her and
to "resuscitate the empire of the Occident." (Note to Otto, his
ambassador at London, Oct.. 23, 1802.) - Emperor of the French, king
of Italy, master of Rome, suzerain of the Pope, protector of the
confederation of the Rhine, he succeeds the German emperors, the
titularies of the Holy Roman Empire which has just ended in 1806; he
is accordingly the heir of Charlemagne and, through Charlemagne, the
heir of the ancient Cœsars. - In fact, he reproduces the work of the
ancient Cœsars by analogies of imagination, situation and character,
but in a different Europe, and where this posthumous reproduction can
be only an anachronism.
[40] "Correspondance," note for M. Cretet, minister of the interior,
April 12, 1808.
[41] Metternich, "Mémoires," I., 107 (Conversations with Napoleon,,
1810): "I was surprised to find that this man, so wonderfully endowed,
had such completely false ideas concerning England, its vital forces
and intellectual progress. He would not admit any ideas contrary to
his own, and sought to explain these by prejudices which he
condemned." - Cf. Forsyth, "History of the Captivity of Napoleon at
Saint-Helena," III., 306, (False calculations of Napoleon at Saint-
Helena based on his ignorance of the English parliamentary system,)
and Stanislas Girardin, III., 296, (Words of the First Consul, Floreal
24, year XI, quoted above.)
[42] Cf., amongst other documents, his letter to Jerome, King of
Westphalia, October 15, 1807, and the constitution he gives to that
kingdom on that date, and especially titles 4 to 12: "The welfare of
your people concerns me, not only through the influence it may
exercise on your fame and my own, but likewise from the point of view
of the general European system. . . . Individuals who have talent and
are not noble must enjoy equal consideration and employment from you.
. . . Let every species of serfage and of intermediary lien between
the sovereign and the lowest class of people be abolished. The
benefits of the code Napoleon, the publicity of proceedings, the
establishment of juries, will form so many distinctive characteristics
of your monarchy." - His leading object is the suppression of
feudalism, that is to say, of the great families and old historic
authorities. He relies for this especially on his civil code: "That is
the great advantage of the code; . . . it is what has induced me to
preach a civil code and made me decide on establishing it." (Letter to
Joseph, King of Naples, June 5, 1806.) - "The code Napoleon is adopted
throughout Italy. Florence has it, and Rome will soon have it."
(Letter to Joachim, King of the Two Sicilies, Nov. 27, 1808.) - " My
intention is to have the Hanseatic towns adopt the code Napoleon and
be governed by it from and after the 1st of January." - The same with
Dantzic: "Insinuate gently and not by writing to the King of Bavaria,
the Prince-primate, the grand-dukes of Hesse-Darmstadt and of Baden,
that the civil code should be established in their states by
suppressing all customary law and confining themselves wholly to the
code Napoleon." (Letter to M. de Champagny, Oct. 31, 1807.) - " The
Romans gave their laws to their allies. Why should not France have its
laws adopted in Holland? . . . It is equally essential that you should
adopt the French monetary system." (Letter to Louis, King of Holland,
Nov. 13, 1807.) - To the Spaniards: "Your nephews will honor me as
their regenerator." (Allocution addressed to Madrid Dec. 9, 1808.) -
"Spain must be French. The country must be French and the government
must be French." (Roederer, III., 529, 536, words of Napoleon, Feb.
11, 1809.) - In short, following the example of Rome, which had
Latinized the entire Mediterranean coast, he wanted to render all
western Europe French. The object was, as he declared, "to establish
and consecrate at last the empire of reason and the full exercise, the
complete enjoyment of every human faculty." (Mémorial.)
BOOK THIRD. Object and Merits of the System.
CHAPTER I. Recovery of Social Order.
I. Rule as the mass want to be ruled.
How Napoleon comprehends the sovereignty of the people. - His maxim on
the will of the majority and on the office of government. - Two groups
of prominent and obvious desires in 1799.
HOWEVER clear and energetic his artistic convictions may be, his mind
is absorbed by the preoccupations of the ruler: It is not enough for
him that his edifice should be monumental, symmetrical, and beautiful.
As he lives in it and derives the greatest benefit from it, he wants
first of all that it should be fit to live in, habitable for Frenchmen
of the year 1800. Consequently, he takes into account the habits and
dispositions of his tenants, the pressing and permanent wants. But
these needs must not be theoretic and vague, but verified and defined;
for he is as accurate as he is shrewd, and deals only with positive
facts.
"My political system," says he to the Council of State,[1] "is to rule
men as the mass want to be ruled. . . By constituting myself a
Catholic I put an end to the war in La Vendée; by turning into a
Moslem I established myself in Egypt: by turning ultramontane[2] I
gained over the priests in Italy. Were I to govern a population of
Jews, I would restore the temple of Solomon. I shall speak just in
this fashion about liberty in the free part of St. Domingo; I shall
confirm slavery in the Ile-de-France and even in the slave section of
St. Domingo, with the reservation of diminishing and limiting slavery
where I maintain it, and of restoring order and keeping up discipline
where I maintain freedom. I think that is the way to recognize the
sovereignty of the people."
" Now, in France, at this epoch, there are two groups of preponderant
desires which evidently outweigh all others, one dating back the past
ten years, and the other for a century or more: the question is how to
satisfy these, and the sagacious constructor, who estimates them for
what they are worth, combines to this end the proportions, plan,
arrangement, and entire interior economy of his edifice.
II. The Revolution Ends.
Necessities dating from the Revolution. - Lack of security for
Persons, Property, and Consciences. - Requisite conditions for the
establishment of order. - End of Civil war, Brigandage, and Anarchy. -
Universal relief and final security.
The first of these two needs is urgent, almost physical. For the last
ten years, the government has not done its duty, or has ruled in a
contrary sense. By turns or at the same time its impotence and
injustice have been deplorable. It has committed or allowed too many
outrages on persons, property, and consciences. All in all the
Revolution did nothing else, and it is time that this should stop.
Safety and security for consciences, property, and persons is the loud
and unanimous outcry vibrating in all hears.[3] - To calm things down,
many novelties are required: To start with, the political and
administrative concentration just described, a centralization of all
powers in one hand, local powers conferred by the central power, and,
to exercise this supreme power a resolute chief, equal in intelligence
to his high position. Next, a regularly paid army,[4] carefully
equipped, properly clothed and fed, strictly disciplined and therefore
obedient and able to do its duty without wavering or faltering, like
any other instrument of precision. An active police force and
gendarmerie kept on a tight rein. Administrators independent of those
under their jurisdiction, and judges independent of those due to be
tried. All appointed, maintained, watched, and restrained from above,
as impartial as possible, sufficiently competent, and, in their
official spheres, capable functionaries. Finally, freedom of worship,
and, accordingly, a treaty with Rome and the restoration of the
Catholic Church, that is to say, a legal recognition of the orthodox
hierarchy and of the only clergy which the faithful may accept as
legitimate, in other words, the institution of bishops by the Pope,
and of priests by the bishops.
This done, the rest is easily accomplished. A well-led army corps
marches along and tramples out the embers of the conflagration now
kindling in the West, while religious toleration extinguishes the
smoldering fires of popular insurrection. Henceforth, there is an end
to civil war.[5] Regiments ready to act in harmony with the military
commissions[6] purge the South and the valley of the Rhône;
thenceforth, there are no more roving bands in the rural districts,
while brigandage on a grand scale, constantly repressed, ceases, and
after this, that on a small scale. No more chouans, chauffeurs, or
barbets;[7] The mail-coach travels without a guard, and the highways
are safe.[8] There is longer any class or category of citizens
oppressed or excluded from the common law, the latest Jacobin decrees
and the forced loan have been at once revoked: noble or plebeian,
ecclesiastic or layman, rich or poor, former émigré or former
terrorist, every man, whatever his past, his condition, or his
opinions, now enjoys his private property and his legal rights; he has
no longer to fear the violence of the opposite party; he may relay on
the protection of the authorities,[9] and on the equity of the
magistrates.[10] So long as he respects the law he can go to bed at
night and sleep tranquilly with the certainty of awaking in freedom on
the morrow, and with the certainty of doing as he pleases the entire
day; with the privilege of working, buying, selling, thinking, amusing
himself,[11] going and coming at his pleasure, and especially of going
to mass or of staying away if he chooses. No more jacqueries either
rural or urban, no more proscriptions or persecutions and legal or
illegal spoliations, no more intestine and social wars waged with
pikes or by decrees, no more conquests and confiscations made by
Frenchmen against each other. With universal and unutterable relief
people emerge from the barbarous and anarchical régime which reduced
them to living from one day to another, and return to the pacific and
regular régime which permits them to count on the morrow and make
provision for it. After ten years of harassing subjection to the
incoherent absolutism of unstable despotism, here, for the first time,
they find a rational and stable government, or, at least, a
reasonable, tolerable, and fixed degree of it. The First Consul is
carrying out his declarations and he has declared that "The Revolution
has ended."[12]
III. Return of the Emigrés.
Lasting effect of revolutionary laws. - Condition of the Émigrés. -
Progressive and final amnesty. -They return. - They recover a portion
of their possessions. - Many of them enter the new hierarchy. -
Indemnities for them incomplete.
The main thing now is to dress the severe wounds it has made and which
are still bleeding, with as little torture as possible, for it has cut
down to the quick, and its amputations, whether foolish or outrageous,
have left sharp pains or mute suffering in the social organism.
One hundred and ninety-two thousand names have been inscribed on the
list of émigrés[13] the terms of the law, every émigré is civilly
dead, and his possessions have become the property of the Republic;"
if he dared return to France, the same law condemned him to death;
there could be no appeal, petition, or respite; it sufficed to prove
identity and the squad of executioners was at once ordered out. Now,
at the beginning of the Consulate, this murderous law is still in
force; summary proceedings are always applicable,[14] and one hundred
and forty-six thousand names still appear on the mortuary list. This
constitutes a loss to France of 146,000 Frenchmen, and not those of
the least importance - gentlemen, army and navy officers, members of
parliaments, priests, prominent men of all classes, conscientious
Catholics, liberals of 1789, Feuillantists of the Legislative
assembly, and Constitutionalists of the years III and V. Worse still,
through their poverty or hostility abroad, they are a discredit or
even a danger for France, as formerly with the Protestants driven out
of the country by Louis XIV.[15] - To these 146,000 exiled Frenchmen
add 200,000 or 300,000 others, residents, but semi-proscribed:[16]
First, those nearly related and allied to each émigré, excluded by the
law from "every legislative, administrative, municipal and judicial
function," and even deprived of the elective vote. Next, all former
nobles or ennobled, deprived by the law of their status as Frenchmen
and obliged to re-naturalize themselves according to the formalities.
It is, accordingly, almost the entire elite of old France which is
wanting in the new France, like a limb violently wrenched and half-
detached by the unskillful and brutal scalpel of the revolutionary
"sawbones"; for both the organ and the body are not only living, but
they are still feverish and extremely sensitive; it is important to
avoid too great irritation; inflammation of any kind would be
dangerous. A skilful surgeon, therefore, must mark the places for the
stitches, not force the junctures, but anticipate and prepare for the
final healing process, and await the gradual and slow results of vital
effort and spontaneous renewal. Above all he must not alarm the
patient. The First Consul is far from doing this; on the contrary his
expressions are all encouraging. Let the patient keep quiet, there
shall be no re-stitching, the wound shall not be touched. The
constitution solemnly declares that the French people shall never
allow the return of the émigrés,[17] and, on this point, the hands of
future legislators are already tied fast; it prohibits any exception
being added to the old ones. - But, first, by virtue of the same
constitution, every Frenchman not an émigré or banished has the right
to vote, to be elected, to exercise every species of public function;
consequently, twelve days later,[18] a mere order of the Council of
State restores civil and political rights to former nobles and the
ennobled, to the kinsmen and relations of émigrés, to all who have
been dubbed émigrés of the interior and whom Jacobin intolerance had
excluded, if not from the territory, at least from the civic body:
here are 200,000 or 300,000 Frenchmen already brought back into
political communion if not to the soil. - They had succumbed to the
coup-d'état of Fructidor; naturally, the leading fugitives or those
transported, suffering under the same coup-d'état, were restored to
political rights along with them and thus to the territory - Carnot,
Barthélémy, Lafont-Ladébat, Siméon, Poissy d'Anglas, Mathieu Dumas, in
all thirty-nine, designated by name;[19] very soon after. Through a
simple extension of the same resolution, others of the Fructidor
victims, a crowd of priests huddled together and pining away on the
Ile-de-Ré, the most unfortunate and most inoffensive of all.[20] - Two
months later, a law declares that the list of émigrés is definitely
closed;[21] a resolution orders immediate investigation into the
claims of those who are to be struck off the list; a second resolution
strikes off the first founders of the new order of things, the members
of the National Assembly "who voted for the establishment of equality
and the abolition of nobility;" and, day after day, new erasures
succeed each other, all specific and by name, under cover of
toleration, pardon, and exception:[22] on the 19th of October 1800,
there are already 1200 of them. Bonaparte, at this date, had gained
the battle of Marengo; the surgical restorer feels that his hands are
more free; he can operate on a larger scale and take in whole bodies
collectively. On the 20th of October 1800, a resolution strikes off
entire categories from the list, all whose condemnation is too grossly
unjust or malicious,[23] at first, minors under sixteen and the wives
of émigrés; next, farmers, artisans, workmen, journeymen and servants
with their wives and children and at last 18,000 ecclesiastics who,
banished by law, left the country only in obedience to the law.
Besides these, "all individuals inscribed collectively and without
individual denomination," those already struck off, but provisionally,
by local administrations; also still other classes. Moreover, a good
many emigrants, yet standing on the lists, steal back one by one into
France, and the government tolerates them.[24] Finally, eighteen
months later, after the peace of Amiens and the Concord at,[25] a
sénatus-consulte ends the great operation; an amnesty relieves all who
are not yet struck off, except the declared leaders of the militant
emigration, its notables, and who are not to exceed one thousand; the
rest may come back and enjoy their civic rights; only, they must
promise "loyalty to the government established under the constitution
and not maintain directly or indirectly any connection or
correspondence with the enemies of the State." On this condition the
doors of France are thrown open to them and they return in crowds.
But their bodily presence is not of itself sufficient; it is moreover
essential that they should not be absent in feeling, as strangers and
merely domiciliated in the new society. Were these mutilated fragments
of old France, these human shreds put back in their old places, simply
attached or placed in juxtaposition to modern France, they would prove
useless, troublesome and even mischievous. Let us strive, then, to
have them grafted on afresh through adherence or complete fusion; and
first, to effect this, they must not be allowed to die of inanition;
they must take root physically and be able to live. In private life,
how can former proprietors, the noblesse, the parliamentarians, the
upper bourgeoisie, support themselves, especially those without a
profession or pursuit, and who, before 1789, maintained themselves,
not by their labor, but by their income? Once at home, they can no
longer earn their living as they did abroad; they can no longer give
lessons in French, in dancing, or in fencing. - There is no doubt but
that the sénatus-consulte which amnesties them restores to them a part
of their unsold possessions;[26] but most of these are sold and, on
the other hand, the First Consul, who is not disposed to re-establish
large fortunes for royalists,[27] retains and maintains the largest
portion of what they have been despoiled of in the national domain:
all woods and forests of 300 arpents[28] and over, their stock and
property rights in the great canals, and their personal property
already devoted to the public service. The effective restitution is
therefore only moderate; the émigrés who return recover but little
more than one-twentieth of their patrimony, one hundred millions[29]
out of more than two milliards. Observe, besides, that by virtue even
of the law and as admitted by the First Consul,[30] this alms is badly
distributed; the most needy and the greatest number remain empty-
handed, consisting of the lesser and medium class of rural
proprietors, especially of country gentlemen whose domain, worth less
than 50,000 francs, brings in only 2000 or 3000 francs income;[31] a
domain of this size came within reach of a great many purses, and
hence found purchasers more readily and with greater facility than a
large holding; the State was almost always the seller, and thenceforth
the old proprietor could make no further claim or pretension. - Thus,
for many of the émigrés, "the sénatus-consulte of the year X is simply
a permit to starve to death in France "and,[32] four years later,[33]
Napoleon himself estimates that "40,000 are without the means of
subsistence." They manage to keep life and soul together and nothing
more;[34] many, taken in and cared for by their friends or relations,
are supported as guests or parasites, somewhat through compassion and
again on humanitarian grounds. One recovers his silver plate, buried
in a cellar; another finds notes payable to bearer, forgotten in an
old chest. Sometimes, the purchaser of a piece of property, an honest
man, gives it back at the price he paid for it, or even gratis, if,
during the time he had held it, he had derived sufficient profit from
it. Occasionally, when the adjudication happens to have been
fraudulent, or the sale too irregular, and subject to legal
proceedings, the dishonest purchaser does not refuse a compromise. But
these cases are rare, and the evicted owner, if he desires to dine
regularly, will wisely seek a small remunerative position and serve as
clerk, book-keeper or accountant. M. des Echerolles, formerly a
brigadier-general, keeps the office of the new line of diligences at
Lyons, and earns 1200 francs a year. M. de Puymaigre, who, in 1789,
was worth two millions, becomes a contrôleur des droits réunis at
Briey with a salary of 2400 francs. - In every branch of the new
administration a royalist is welcome to apply for a post;[35] however
slightly recommended, he obtains the place. Sometimes he even receives
one without having asked for it; M. de Vitrolles[36] thus becomes, in
spite of himself, inspector of the imperial sheepfolds; this fixes his
position and makes it appear as if he had given in his adhesion to the
government. - Naturally, the great political recruiter singles out the
tallest and most imposing subjects, that is to say, belonging to the
first families of the ancient monarchy, and, like one who knows his
business, he brings to bear every means, constraint and seduction,
threats and cajoleries, supplies in ready money, promises of promotion
with the influence of a uniform and gold-lace embroidery.[37] It
matters little whether the enlistment is voluntary or extorted; the
moment a man becomes a functionary and is enrolled in the hierarchy,
he loses the best portion of his independence; once a dignitary and
placed at the top of the hierarchy, he gives his entire individuality
up, for henceforth he lives under the eye of the master, feels the
daily and direct pressure of the terrible hand which grasps him, and
he forcibly becomes a mere tool.[38] These historic names, moreover,
contribute to the embellishment of the reign. Napoleon hauls in a good
many of them, and the most illustrious among the old noblesse, of the
court of the robe and of the sword. He can enumerate among his
magistrates, M. Pasquier, M. Séguier, M. Molé; among his prelates, M.
de Boisgelin, M. du Barral, M. du Belley, M. de Roquelaure, M. de
Broglie; among his military officers, M. de Fézensac, M. de Ségur, M.
de Mortemart, M. de Narbonne;[39] among the dignitaries of his palace,
chaplains, chamberlains and ladies of honor - the Rohan, Croy,
Chevreuse, Montmorency, Chabot, Montesquiou, Noailles, Brancas,
Gontaut, Grammont, Beauvau, Saint-Aignan, Montalembert, Haussonville,
Choiseul-Praslin, Mercy d'Argenteau, Aubusson de la Feuillade, and
many others, recorded in the imperial almanac as formerly in the royal
almanac.
But they are only with him nominally and in the almanac. Except
certain individuals, M. de las Cases and M. Philippe de Ségur, who
gave themselves up body and soul, even to following him to Saint
Helena, to glorifying, admiring and loving him beyond the grave, the
others are submissive conscripts and who remain more or less
refractory spirits. He does nothing to win them over. His court is
not, like the old court, a conversational ball-room, but a hall of
inspection, the most sumptuous apartment in his vast barracks; the
civil parade is a continuation of the military parade; one finds one's
self constrained, stiff, mute and uncomfortable.[40]
He does not know how to entertain as the head of his household, how to
welcome guests and be gracious or even polite to his pretended
courtiers; he himself declares that[41] "they go two years without
speaking to him, and six months without seeing him; he does not like
them, their conversation displeases him." When he addresses them it is
to browbeat them; his familiarities with their wives are those of the
gendarme or the pedagogue, while the little attentions he inflicts
upon them are indecorous criticisms or compliments in bad taste. They
know that they are spied upon in their own homes and responsible for
whatever is said there; "the upper police is constantly hovering over
all drawing-rooms."[42] For every word uttered in privacy, for any
lack of compliance, every individual, man or woman, runs the risk of
exile or of being relegated to the interior at a distance of forty
leagues.[43] And the same with the resident gentry in the provinces;
they are obliged to pay court to the prefect, to be on good terms with
him, or at least attend his receptions; it is important that their
cards should be seen on his mantel piece.[44] Otherwise, let them take
heed, for it is he who reports on their conduct to the minister Fouché
or to Savary who replaced him. In vain do they live circumspectly and
confine themselves to a private life; a refusal to accept an office is
unpardonable; there is a grudge against them if they do not employ
their local influence in behalf of the reign.[45] Accordingly, they
are, under the empire as under the republic, in law as in fact, in the
provinces as well as at Paris, privileged persons the wrong way, a
suspicious class under a special surveillance" and subject to
exceptional rigor.[46] In 1808,[47] Napoleon orders Fouché "to draw up
. . . among the old and wealthy families who are not in the system . .
. a list of ten in each department, and of fifty for Paris," of which
the sons from sixteen to eighteen years of age shall be forced to
enter Saint-Cyr and from thence go into the army as second
lieutenants. In 1813, still "in the highest classes of society," and
arbitrarily selected by the prefects, he takes ten thousand other
persons, exempt or redeemed from the conscription, even the married,
even fathers of families, who, under the title of guards of honor,
become soldiers, at first to be slaughtered in his service, and next,
and in the mean time, to answer for the fidelity of their relatives.
It is the old law of hostages, a resumption of the worst proceedings
of the Directory for his account and aggravated for his profit. -
Decidedly, the imperial Régime, for the old royalists, resembles too
much the Jacobin régime; they are about as repugnant to one as to the
other, and their aversion naturally extends to the whole of the new
society. - As they comprehend it, they are more or less robbed and
oppressed for a quarter of a century. In order that their hostility
may cease, the indemnity of 1825 is essential, fifty years of gradual
adaptation, the slow elimination of two or three generations of
fathers and the slow elimination of two or three generations of sons.
Nothing is so difficult as the reparation of great social wrongs. In
this case the incomplete reparation did not prove sufficient; the
treatment which began with gentleness ended with violence, and, as a
whole, the operation only half succeeded.
IV. Education and Medical Care.
Confiscation of collective fortunes. - Ruin of the Hospitals and
Schools.
Other wounds are not less deep, and their cure is not less urgent; for
they cause suffering, not only to one class, but to the whole people -
that vast majority which the government strives to satisfy. Along with
the property of the émigrés, the Revolution has confiscated that of
all local or special societies, ecclesiastic or laic, of churches and
congregations, universities and academies, schools and colleges,
asylums and hospitals, and even the property of the communes. All
these fortunes have been swallowed up by the public treasury, which is
a bottomless pit, and are gone forever. - Consequently, all services
thus maintained, especially charitable institutions, public worship
and education, die or languish for lack of sustenance; the State,
which has no money for itself, has none for them. And what is worse,
it hinders private parties from taking them in charge; being Jacobin,
that is to say intolerant and partisan, it has proscribed worship,
driven nuns out of the hospitals, closed Christian schools, and, with
its vast power, it prevents others from carrying out at their own
expense the social enterprises which it no longer cares for.
And yet the needs for which this work provides have never been so
great nor so imperative. In ten years,[48] the number of foundlings
increased from 23,000 to 62,000; it is, as the reports state, a
deluge: there are 1097 instead of 400 in Aisne, 1500 in Lot-et-
Garonne, 2035 in la Manche, 2043 in Bouches-du-Rhône, 2673 in
Calvados. From 3000 to 4000 beggars are enumerated in each department
and about 300,000 in all France.[49] As to the sick, the infirm, the
mutilated, unable to earn their living, it suffices, for an idea of
their multitude, to consider the régime to which the political doctors
have just subjected France, the Régime of fasting and bloodletting.
Two millions of Frenchmen have marched under the national flag, and
eight hundred thousand have died under it;[50] among the survivors,
how many cripples, how many with one arm and with wooden legs! All
Frenchmen have eaten dog-bread for three years and often have not had
enough of that to live on; over a million have died of starvation and
poverty; all the wealthy and well-to-do Frenchmen have been ruined and
have lived in constant fear of the guillotine; four hundred thousand
have wasted away in prisons; of the survivors, how many shattered
constitutions, how many bodies and brains disordered by an excess of
suffering and anxiety, by physical and moral wear and tear![51]
Now, in 1800, assistance is lacking for this crowd of civil and
military invalids, the charitable establishments being no longer in a
condition to furnish it. Under the Constituent Assembly, through the
suppression of ecclesiastical property and the abolition of octrois, a
large portion of their revenue had been cut off, that assigned to them
out of octrois and the tithes. Under the Legislative Assembly and the
Convention, through the dispersion and persecution of nuns and monks,
they were deprived of a body of able male and female volunteer
servants who, instituted for centuries, gave their labor without
stint. Under the Convention, all their possessions, the real-estate
and the debts due them, had been confiscated;[52] and, in the
restitution to them of the remainder at the end of three years, a
portion of their real-estate is found to have been sold, while their
claims, settled by assignats or converted into state securities, had
died out or dwindled to such an extent that, in 1800, after the final
bankruptcy of the assignats and of the state debt, the ancient
patrimony of the poor is two-thirds or one-half reduced.[53] It is
for this reason that the eight hundred charitable institutions which,
in 1789, had one hundred thousand or one hundred and ten thousand
occupants, could not support more than one-third or one-half of them;
on the other hand, it may be estimated that the number of applicants
tripled; from which it follows that, in 1800, there is less than one
bed in the hospitals and asylums for six children, either sick or
infirm.
V. Old and New.
Complaints of the Poor, of Parents, and of Believers. - Contrast
between old and new educational facilities. - Clandestine instruction.
- Jacobin teachers.
Under this wail of the wretched who vainly appeal for help, for
nursing and for beds, another moan is heard, not so loud, but more
extensive, that of parents unable to educate their children, boys or
girls, and give them any species of instruction either primary or
secondary.
Previous to the Revolution "small schools" were innumerable: in
Normandy, Picardy, Artois, French Flanders, Lorraine and Alsace, in
the Ile-de-France, in Burgundy and Franche-Comté, in the Dombes,
Dauphiny and Lyonnais, in the Comtat, in the Cévennes and in
Béarn,[54] almost as many schools could be counted as there were
parishes, in all probably twenty or twenty-five thousand for the
thirty-seven thousand parishes in France, and all frequented and
serviceable; for, in 1789, forty-seven men out of a hundred, and
twenty-six girls or women out of a hundred, could read and write or,
at least, sign their names.[55] - And these schools cost the treasury
nothing, next to nothing to the tax-payer, and very little to parents.
In many places, the congregations, supported by their own property,
furnished male or female teachers, - Frères de la Doctrine Chrétienne,
Frères de Saint-Antoine, Ursulines, Visitandines, Filles de la
Charité, Sœurs de Saint-Charles, Sœurs de la Providence, Sœurs de la
Sagesse, Sœurs de Notre-Dame de la Croix, Vatelottes, Miramiones,
Manettes du Tiers Ordre, and many others. Elsewhere, the curate of the
parish was obliged through a parish regulation to teach himself, or to
see that his vicar taught. A very large number of factories or of
communes had received legacies for maintaining a school; the
instructor often enjoyed, through an endowment, a métayer farm or a
piece of ground; he was generally provided with a lodging; if he was a
layman he was exempt, besides, from the most onerous taxes; as sexton,
beadle, chorister or bell-ringer, he had small perquisites; finally,
he was paid for each child four or five sous[56] a month; sometimes,
especially in poor districts, he taught only from All Saints' day down
to the spring, and followed another occupation during the summer. In
short, his salary and his comfort were about those of a rural vicar or
of a suitably paid curate.
Higher education (éducation secondaire) was provided for in the same
manner, and still better by local and private enterprise. More than
one hundred and eight establishments furnished it completely, and more
than four hundred and fifty-four partially.[57] Like the others, and
not less liberally than the smaller schools, these were supported by
endowments, some of which were very ample and even magnificent; a
certain upper school in the provinces, Rodez,[58] possessed twenty-
seven thousand livres income, and one in Paris, Louis-le-Grand, an
income of four hundred and fifty thousand livres, each of these, large
or small, having its own distinct endowment, in real property, lands
and houses, and in revenues on privileges derived from the hotel-de-
ville, the octroi and from transportation lines. - And, in each of
them, the scholarships, or half-scholarships, were numerous-six
hundred alone in Louis-le-Grand. In total, out of the seventy-two
thousand scholars in the kingdom, there were forty thousand for whom a
high-school education was gratuitous or half-gratuitous; nowadays, it
is less than five thousand out of seventy-nine thousand.[59] The
reason why is that, before 1789, the revenues were not only large, but
the expenses were small. The salary of a head-master, teacher, or
assistant-teacher was not large, say four hundred and fifty, six
hundred, nine hundred, or twelve hundred livres per annum at most,
just enough for a single man to live on; in effect, most of the
teachers were priests or monks, Benedictines, regular canons,
Oratorians, the latter alone officiating in thirty colleges. Not
subject to the expenses and necessities which a family imposes, they
were abstemious through piety, or at least through discipline, habit,
and respect for persons; frequently, the statutes of the school
obliged them to live in common,[60] which was much cheaper than living
apart. - The same economical accord is found with all the wheels, in
the arrangement and working of the entire system. A family, even a
rural one, never lived far away from a high-school, for there were
high-schools in nearly all the small towns, seven or eight in each
department, fifteen in Ain, seventeen in Aisne.[61] The child or
youth, from eight to eighteen, had not to endure the solitude and
promiscuity of a civil barracks; he remained within reach of his
parents. If they were too poor to pay the three hundred francs board
required by the school, they placed their son in a respectable family,
in that of some artisan or acquaintance in the town; there, with three
or four others, he was lodged, had his washing done, was cared for and
watched, had a seat at the family table and by the fireside, and was
provided with light; every week, he received from the country his
supply of bread and other provisions; the mistress of the house cooked
for him and mended his clothes, the whole for two or three livres a
month.[62] - Thus do institutions flourish that arise spontaneously on
the spot; they adapt themselves to circumstances, conform to
necessities, utilize resources and afford the maximum of returns for
the minimum of expense.
This great organization disappears entirely, bodily and with all its
possessions, like a ship that sinks beneath the waves. The teachers
are dismissed, exiled, transported, and proscribed; its property is
confiscated, sold and destroyed, and the remainder in the hands of the
State is not restored and again applied to its former service. Public
education, worse treated than public charity, does not recover a shred
of its former endowment. Consequently, in the last years of the
Directory, and even early in the Consulate,[63] there is scarcely any
instruction given in France; in fact, for the past eight or nine years
it has ceased,[64] or become private and clandestine. Here and there,
a few returned priests, in spite of the intolerant law and with the
connivance of the local authorities, also a few scattered nuns, teach
in a contraband fashion a few small groups of Catholic children ; five
or six little girls around a disguised Ursuline nun spell out the
alphabet in a back room;[65] a priest without tonsure or cassock
secretly receives in the evening two or three youths whom he makes
translate the De Viris. - During the intervals, indeed, of the Reign
of Terror, before the 13th of Vendémiaire and the 18th of Fructidor,
sundry schools spring up again like tufts of grass in a mowed pasture-
ground, but only in certain spots and meagerly; moreover, as soon as
the Jacobin returns to power he stubbornly stamps them out;[66] he
wants to have teaching all to himself. - Now the institution by which
the State pretends to replace the old and free establishments makes a
figure only on paper. One école centrale in each department is
installed or decreed, making eighty eight on the territory of ancient
France; this hardly supplies the place of the eight or nine hundred
high-schools (collèges), especially as these new schools are hardly
viable, being in ruin at the very start,[67] poorly maintained, badly
furnished, with no preparatory schools nor adjacent boarding-
houses,[68] the programme of studies being badly arranged and parents
suspicious of the spirit of the studies.[69] 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 École 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.[70]
It is much worse with primary instruction. This task is given to the
local authorities. But, as they have no money, they generally shirk
this duty, and, if they do set up a school, are unable to maintain
it.[71] On the other hand, as instruction must be laic and Jacobin,
"almost everywhere,"[72] 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:[73] 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.[74] 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.[75] - 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.[76] 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 worship
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."[77] 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 viaticum; 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[78]
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
institution 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 God. Several things are requisite to this end:
* First, vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, that is to say, the
steady and voluntary repression of the most powerful animal instinct
and of the strongest worldly appetites;
* 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 prostitutes;
* Finally, the strict daily rule which, a sort of rigorous and minute
countersign, enjoining and compelling the repetition 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 constitute 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 curé
and the interloper, between the right mass and the wrong mass; it is
the prohibition of the mass which has led them to comprehend its
importance; it is the revolutionary government which has transformed
them into theologians and canonists.[79] Compelled, under the Reign
of Terror, to sing and dance before the goddess Reason, and next,
in the temple of the "Étre 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
worship, which is an act of faith, and a worship 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 hell beyond the grave, and the republican
substitute, officiating in a municipal 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.[80] -
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 tithes, 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,[81] the orthodox priests have
again recovered their place and ascendancy in his soul which the creed
assigns 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 mass 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;[82] 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[83] 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
tithes, for, established many centuries ago, the tithes 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 titles, 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 worship has revived, passes 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;[84] all Catholics hear it, and out of thirty-
five millions of Frenchmen,[85] thirty-two millions are Catholics.
VII. The Confiscated Property.
Reasons for the concordat. - Napoleon's economical organization of the
Church institution. - A good bargainer. - Compromise with the old
state of things.
How withstand such a just complaint, the universal complaint of the
destitute, 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 passed 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. Nobody
dreams of taking back property that is sold; nothing is more opposed
to the spirit of the new Régime: 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 title 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 passion of the ordinary
man, and through love of the soil, the strongest passion of the
peasant.[86] Their loyalty depends on their security, and
consequently he is lavish of guarantees. In his constitution of the
year VIII,[87] 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
institution 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."[88] According to the terms
of the imperial constitution[89] "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.[90] 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.[91] 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.[92] 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 title 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, institutionally, 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 ownership of the said property,
the rights and revenues derived there from, shall consequently remain
in commutable in their hands or in those of their assigns."[93]
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[94] 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 curé of the first class and 1000 francs to each curé of
the second class,[95] also, later on,[96] a maximum of 500 francs and a
minimum of 300 francs to each assistant-priest or vicar. "If
circumstances require it,[97] the conseils-généraux of the large
communes may grant to prelates or to curés an increase of salary out
of their rural possessions or octrois." In all cases, archbishops,
bishops, curés and priests shall be lodged, or receive a lodging
indemnity. So much for the support of persons.-As to real
property,[98] "all the metropolitan churches, cathedrals, parochial
buildings and others, not alienated, and needed for the purposes of
worship, shall be subject to the disposition of the bishops." - The
parsonages and gardens attached to these, not alienated, shall be
given up to the curés and assistant-priests." - " The possessions of
the fabriques,[99] 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 worship,[100]
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 assessment of 10 %.[101] 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,[102] 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 worship," 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 institution, 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 association.[103] Numerous
societies of men or of women again spring up with the assent of the
public authorities - the "Ignorantins," the "Filles de la Charité,"
the "Seurs Hospitalières," the "Sœurs de Saint-Thomas," the "Sœurs de
Saint-Charles," the "Sœurs 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,[104] 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;[105] 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,[106]
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[107] "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.[108]
And nothing more. Nobody, 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 curés, in all five million francs per annum, is
all that the State promises to the new clergy. Later on,[109] he takes
it on himself to pay those who officiate in the branch chapels;
nevertheless, in 1807, the entire appropriation for public worship
costs the State only twelve million francs a year;[110] the rest, as a
rule, and especially the salaries of the forty thousand assistant-
priests and vicars, must be provided by the fabriques and the
communes.[111] Let the clergy benefit by occasional
contributions;[112] let it appeal to the piety of believers for its
monstrances, chalices, albs and chasubles, for decorations and the
other expenses of worship; 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
establishing foundations in favor of seminaries and churches ; the
foundation, after verification and approval by the Council of State,
becomes operative; only,[113] 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;[114]
should the clergy become land-owners it would enjoy too much local
influence. No bishop, no curé 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 assigned to worship."
This edifice is not restored to the Christian community, nor to its
representatives; it is simply "placed at the disposition of the
bishop."[115] The State retains the ownership 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,[116] and, in this case, it is not the State which
loses its title 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;[117] for the diocese of
Grenoble, it allows only eight in seven years.[118] In this way, it
not only saves conscripts, but again, for lack of young priests, it
forces the bishops to appoint old priests, even constitutionalists,
nearly all pensioners on the treasury, and which either relieves the
treasury of a pension or the commune of a subsidy.[119] - 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
institutions. - 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 institutions, 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.[120] 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,[121] which he distributes among the
asylums, pro rata, according to their losses. He assigns to them,
moreover, all the rents, in money or in kind, due for foundations to
parishes, curés, 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."[122] In
short, he rummages every corner and picks out the scraps which may
help them along; then, resuming and extending another undertaking of
the Directory, he assigns to them, not merely in Paris, but in many
other towns, a portion of the product derived from theatres and
octrois.[123] - Having thus increased their income, he applies himself
to diminishing 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 institutions 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 scholarship,[124] or for a village
schoolhouse. And to whom should these be returned since the college
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