Paris, January 25, 1802.

I have already observed that the general effervescence to which the revolution gave birth, soon extended to the seminaries of learning. The alarm-bell resounded even in the most silent of those retreats. Bands of insurgents, intermixed with women, children, and men of every condition, came each moment to interrupt the studies, and, forcing the students to range themselves under their filthy banner, presented to them the spectacle of every excess. It required not all this violence to disorganize institutions already become antiquated,[1] and few of which any longer enjoyed much consideration in the public opinion. The colleges and universities were deserted, and their exercises ceased. Not long after, they were suppressed. The only establishment of this description which has survived the storms of the revolution, and which is no less important from its utility than extensive in its object, is the

COLLÈGE DE FRANCE.

It neither owed this exemption to its ancient celebrity, nor to the talents of its professors; but having no rich collections which could attract notice, no particular estates which could tempt cupidity, it was merely forgotten by the revolutionists, and their ignorance insured its preservation.

The CollÈge de France is, at the present day, in this country, and perhaps in the rest of Europe, the only establishment where every branch of human knowledge is taught in its fullest extent. The object of this institution is to spread the most elevated notions of the sciences, to maintain and pave the way to the progress of literature, either by preserving the taste and purity of the ancient authors, or by exhibiting the order, lustre, and richness of the modern. Its duty is to be continually at the head of all the establishments of public instruction, in order to guide them, lead them on, and, as it were, light them with the torch of knowledge.

This college, which is situated in the Place de Cambray, Rue St. Jacques, was founded by Francis I. That monarch, distinguished from all cotemporaries by his genius, amiableness, and magnificence, saw in literature the source of the glory of princes, and of the civilization of the people. He loved and honoured it, not only in the writings of the learned, but in the learned themselves, whom he called about his person, at the same time loading them with encouragement and favours. It is singular that those times, so rude in many respects, were, nevertheless, productive of sentiments the most delicate and noble.

Truth never shuns princes who welcome it. Francis I was not suffered to remain ignorant of the deplorable state in which literature then was in France, and, though very young, he disdained not this information. Nothing, in fact, could approach nearer to barbarism. The impulse Charlemagne had given to study was checked. The torches he had lighted were on the point of being extinguished. That famous university which he had created had fallen into decline. A prey to all the cavils of pedantry, it substituted dispute and quibble to true philosophy.

Nothing was any longer talked of but the five universals, substance, and accident. All the fury of argument was manifested to know whether those were simple figures, or beings really existing, all things equally useful to the revival of knowledge and the happiness of mankind. The Hebrew and Greek tongues were scarcely, if at all, known; the living languages, little cultivated; Latin itself, then almost common, was taught in the most rude and imperfect manner. In short, the most learned body of the State had fallen into the most profound ignorance: a striking example of the necessity of renewing continually and maintaining the life of those bodies employed in instruction.

I am not speaking of the sciences, then entirely unknown. The languages were every thing at this period, on account of their connexion with religion.

The small number of men of merit whom the bad taste of the age had not reached, were striving to restore to literature its lustre, and to men's minds their true direction; but, in order to revive the taste for good studies, it was necessary to create a new establishment for public instruction, which should be sufficiently extensive for acquiring a great influence. It was necessary to assemble men the most celebrated for their talent and reputation, in order that, being thus placed in full view, and presented to public attention, they might rectify the minds of men by their authority, as well as enlighten them by their knowledge.

This undertaking, difficult in itself, became much less so through the circumstances which then existed. Taste seemed to have taken refuge at the court, and the king easily yielded to the reasons of the learned who approached him; but no one took a greater share in this project than the celebrated Erasmus. Remote from it as he was, he accelerated its execution by the disinterested praises which he lavished on it. The king sent to invite him, in the most flattering terms, to take the direction of it and to settle in France; but Erasmus, jealous of liberty, retained besides by the gratitude he owed to Charles V, and by the care he bestowed on the College of Louvain which he had founded, refused this task, equally honourable and useful. He manifested not the less, in his letters, the joy he felt to see studies re-established by the only means which could reanimate them. It is pleasing to the true friends of the sciences to find among those who cultivate them similar traits of generosity and nobleness.

At length peace having restored to France repose and the means of repairing her losses, the king gave himself up without reserve to the desire he had of making the sciences flourish, and realized the grand project of public instruction which had for a long time occupied his mind. The new college took the name of CollÈge Royal. It had professors for the Hebrew and Greek tongues, and some even for the mathematics, philosophy, medicine, and the living languages.

The formation of the CollÈge Royal gave great displeasure to the University. After having held so long without a rival the sceptre of the sciences and literature, it was grating to its members to relinquish it. They could ill bear to see set above it an establishment evidently intended to direct and guide it. Self-love offended seldom forgives, especially when it is animated by the esprit de corps. The University depreciated the new college, and endeavoured to fetter it in a thousand ways. At last, those dark intrigues being constantly smothered by the applause which the professors received, the University finished by bringing them before a court of justice. From, envy to persecution there is but one step, and that step was soon taken.

Religion served as a pretext and a cloak for this accusation. It was affirmed that the new professors could not, without danger to the faith, explain the Hebrew and Greek tongues, if they had not been presented to the University to be examined by it, and received from it their mission. To this it was answered, that if the theologians of the University understood Greek and Hebrew, it must be easy for them to denounce the passages in which the new professors had erred, and that if, on the contrary, they did not understand those languages, they ought not to pretend to judge those who taught them. After long debates, things were left in the state in which they were before the trial. Each party continued quietly its lessons, and, as it almost always happens in such cases, reason ended by having its due weight: true it is that it was then supported by royal authority.

The CollÈge de France has not since ceased to make an increasing progress. It even had the valuable advantage of reforming itself successively, and of following new ideas, the necessary result of its constitution and of the lustre that has always surrounded it; two causes which have occasioned its chairs to be sought by the most celebrated men of every description. It is this successive reform which constitutes the distinctive character of the CollÈge de France, and which has always enabled it to fulfil its real object.

Thus, to quote but one example. The chair of Greek philosophy was, in the beginning, intended to make known the writings of the ancient philosophers on the nature of things and the organization of the universe. These were, at that time, the only repositories of human knowledge for mathematics and physics; but, in proportion as the sciences, more advanced, substituted rational theories for hazardous conjectures, the modern discoveries of astronomy were taught, together with the writings of the ancients. The object of this chair, which at the present day bears the name of general physics and mathematics, is to disseminate the most elevated notions of mechanics and the theory of the system of the world. The works taught by its occupier are analytical mechanics and celestial mechanics, that is, those works which form the limits of our knowledge for mathematical analysis, and consequently those of which it is most important to increase the very small number of readers.

By a consequence of that spirit of amelioration which animates this College, some time before the revolution, a chair and a cabinet of experimental physics were added to it.

As for the natural sciences, which are taught here with much depth and detail in several establishments, they have, in the CollÈge de France, a sort of regulator which directs them, as it were, by their generalities. It is, in fact, to this only that an establishment which, by its nature, contains no collection, ought to attach itself, and the philosophy of the sciences, the result and completion of their study, here constitutes the object of all the lectures.

Thus the improvements which the sciences have successively experienced, have always been spread by the instruction of the CollÈge Royal; and among the professors who have occupied its chairs, none can be quoted who have been strangers to their progress.

The revolution, which overthrew in France the ancient universities, suspended for some time the exercises of this establishment; but, under the name of CollÈge de France, it has since resumed a new lustre. It then found itself compelled to new efforts, in order to maintain its place among the scientific institutions, which have emulously risen in every branch of human knowledge. Nevertheless, those different sciences, even natural history, and the curative art, taught with so much perfection in private establishments, have hence derived great advantages, and here it is that public instruction comes at once to be resumed, investigated, and extended.

The present government appears to be perfectly sensible of the importance of such an establishment. The enlightened men, the celebrated savans, who approach it, have pointed out in the CollÈge de France a normal school, completely formed, and which unites to the extent of its object the ever-powerful ascendant of seniority. The similarity between the circumstances in which this institution is at the present day and those when it was founded, affords the most certain hope of its progress being maintained and accelerated.

This is what appears to me the most interesting in the history of this ancient college. I say nothing of its present professors; their zeal is proved by their assiduous and uninterrupted lessons; their merit is before the judgment of the public; and as for their names, these are indifferent to the results of their labours. If any other motive than that of the interest of the sciences were blended with the information I now communicate, I should not think that, in this letter, I was fulfilling the object of your wishes.

P.S. It may not be useless to mention that no students are attached to the CollÈge de France. The lectures are public; and every one who is desirous of improving his mind in any branch of science, may attend them free of expense or trouble. It is impossible for the friend of learning to withhold his admiration from so noble an institution. What, in fact, can be more liberal than this gratuitous diffusion of knowledge?

Footnote 1: Whatever sentiment may have been preserved respecting the ancient University of Paris, every impartial person must acknowledge that it was several centuries in arrear in regard to every thing which concerns the Arts and Sciences. Peripatetic, when the learned had, with Descartes, renounced the philosophy of Aristotle, it became Cartesian, when they were Newtonians. Such is the too general custom of bodies, engaged in instruction, who make no discoveries. Invested at their formation with great influence over scientific opinions, because they are composed of the best informed men of the day, they wish constantly to preserve those advantages. They with reluctance suffer that there should be formed, elsewhere than in their own bosom, new opinions which might balance theirs; and if the progress of the sciences at last obliges them to abandon their doctrine, they never adopt the most modern theories, were they, in other respects, preferable; but embrace those which existed for some time anterior to them, and which they themselves had before combated. This inertness of bodies, employed in instruction, is an unavoidable evil; because it is the effect of self-love, the most invariable of passions.Return to text