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.31120 But this was a complicated operation; things had dragged along in the universal disorder and, to carry it out, the First Consul reduced and simplified it. He at once sets aside a portion of the national domain, several distinct morsels in each district or department, amounting in all to four millions of annual income derived from productive real-estate,31121 which he distributes among the asylums, pro rata, according to their losses. He 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."31122 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.31123—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,31124 or for a village schoolhouse. And to whom should these be returned since the college and the schoolhouse no longer exist?—Fortunately, instruction is an article of such necessity that a father almost always tries to procure it for his children; even if poor, he is willing to pay for it, if not too dear; only, he wants that which pleases him in kind and in quality and, therefore, from a particular source, bearing this or that factory stamp or label. If you want him to buy it do not drive the purveyors of it from the market who enjoy his confidence and who sell it cheaply; on the contrary, welcome them and allow them to display their wares. This is the first step, an act of toleration; the conseils-gÉnÉraux demand it and the government yields.31125 It permits the return of the Ignorantin brethren, allows them to teach and authorizes the towns to employ them; later on, it graduates them at its University: in 1810, they already possess 41 schoolhouses and 8400 pupils.31126 Still more liberally, it authorizes and favors female educational congregations; down to the end of the empire and afterwards, nuns are about the only instructors of young girls, especially in primary education.—Owing to the same toleration, the upper schools are likewise reorganized, and not less spontaneously, through the initiative of private individuals, communes, bishops, colleges or pensionnats, at Reims, Fontainebleau, Metz, Évreux, SorrÈze, Juilly, La FlÉche and elsewhere small seminaries in all the dioceses. Offer and demand have come together; instructors meet the children half-way, and education begins on all sides.31127 Thought can now be given to its endowment, and the State invites everybody, the communes as well as private persons, to the undertaking. It is on their liberality that it relies for replacing the ancient foundations; it solicits gifts and legacies in favor of new establishments, and it promises "to surround these donations with the most invariable respect."31128 Meanwhile, and as a precautionary measure, it assigns to each its eventual duty;31129 if the commune establishes a primary school for itself, it must provide the tutor with a lodging and the parents must compensate him; if the commune founds a college or accepts a lycÉe, it must pay for the annual support of the building,31130 while the pupils, either day-scholars or boarders, pay accordingly. In this way, the heavy expenses are already met, and the State, the general-manager of the service, furnishes simply a very small quota; and this quota, mediocre as a rule, is found almost null in fact, for its main largess consists in 6400 scholarships which it establishes and engages to support; but it confers only about 3000 of them,31131 and it distributes nearly all of these among the children of its military or civilian employees This way a son's scholarship becomes additional pay or an increased salary for the father; thus, the 2 millions which the State seems, under this head, to assign to the lycÉes are actually gratifications which it distributes among its functionaries and officials: it takes back with one hand what it be-stows with the other.—Having put this in place, it establishes the University. It is not at its own expense, however, but at the expense of others, at the expense of private persons and parents, of the communes, and above all at the expense of rival schools and private boarding-schools, of the free institutions, and all this in favor of the University monopoly which subjects these to special taxation as ingenious as it is multifarious.31132 A private individual obtaining diploma to open on a boarding school must pay from 200 to 300 francs to the University; likewise, every person obtaining a diploma to open an institution shall pay from 400 to 600 francs to the University; likewise every person obtaining permission to lecture on law or medicine.31133 Every student, boarder, half-boarder or day-scholar in any school, institution, seminary, college or lycÉe, must pay to the University one-twentieth of the sum which the establishment to which he belongs demands of each of its pupils. In the higher schools, in the faculties of law, medicine, science and literature, the students pay entrance and examination fees and for diplomas, so that the day comes when superior instruction provides for its expenditures out of its receipts and even shows on its budget a net surplus of profit. The new University, with its expenses thus defrayed, will support itself alone; accordingly, all that the State really grants to it, as a veritable gift, in ready cash, is 400,000 francs annual income on the public ledger, a little less than the donation of one single college, Louis-le-Grand, in 1789.31134 It may even be said that it is exactly the fortune of the old college which, after being made use of in many ways, turned aside and with other mischance, becomes the patrimony of the new University.31135 From high-school to University, the State has effected the transfer. Such is its generosity. This is especially apparent in connection with primary instruction; in 1812, for the first time, it allows 25,000 francs for this purpose, of which only 4,500 are received.31136 Such is the final liquidation of the great collective fortunes. A settlement of accounts, an express or tacit bargain, intervenes between the State and all institutions for instruction, worship and charity. It has taken from the poor, from the young and from believers, 5 milliards of capital and 270 millions of revenue;31137 it gives back to them, in public income and treasury interest, about 17 millions per annum. As it has the might and makes the law it has no difficulty in obtaining or in giving itself its own discharge; it is a bankrupt who, having spent his creditors money, bestows on these 6%. of their claim by way of alms. Naturally, it takes the opportunity to bring them under its strict and permanent dependence, in adding other claims to those with which the old monarchy had already burdened the corporations that administered collective fortunes. Napoleon increases the weight of these chains and screws them tighter. Not only does he take it upon himself to impose order, probity, and economy on the administrators, but, again, he appoints them, dismisses them, and prescribes or authorizes each of their acts. He puts words in their mouths; he wants to be the great bishop, the universal genius, the sole tutor and professor, in short, the dictator of opinion, the creator and director of every political, social and moral idea throughout his empire.—With what rigidity and pertinacious intent, with what variety and convergence of means, with what plenitude and certainty of execution, with what detriment and with what danger, present and to come, for corporations, for the public, for the State, for himself, we shall see presently; he himself, living and reigning, is to realize this. For his interference, pushed to extremes, is to end in encountering resistance in a body which he considers as his own creature, the Church: here, forgetting that she has roots of her own, deep down and out of his reach, he carries off the Pope, holds him captive, sends cardinals into the interior, (Page 198/504)imprisons bishops, banishes priests, and incorporates seminarians in his regiments.31138 He decrees the closing of all small seminaries,31139 alienates forever the Catholic clergy like the royalist nobility, precisely at the same moment and through the same absolutism, through the same abuse of power, through the same recurrence to revolutionary tradition, to Jacobin infatuation and brutality, even to the frustration of his Concordat of 1802 as with his amnesty of 1802, even to compromising his capital work of the attempted reconciliation and reunion of old France with the new France. His work, nevertheless, although incomplete, even interrupted and marred by himself, remains substantial and salutary. The three grand machines which the Revolution had demolished with so little foresight, and which he had reconstructed at so little cost, are in working order, and, with deviations or shortcomings in result, they render to the public the required services, each its own, worship, charity and instruction. Full toleration and legal protection to the three leading Christian cults, and even to Judaism, would of itself already satisfy the most sensitive of religious demands; owing to the donation furnished by the State and communes and by private individuals, the necessary complement is not wanting. The Catholic community, in particular, the most numerous of all, exercises and celebrates its system of worship in conformity with its faith, according to ecclesiastical canons under its own orthodox hierarchy; in each parish, or within reach of each parish, dwells one authorized priest who administers valid sacraments; in his stole he says mass publicly in a consecrated edifice, plainly decorated at first but gradually beautified; not less publicly, various congregations of monks and nuns, the former in black robes and the "sisters in wimples and white caps, serve in the schools and asylums. On the other hand, in these well-equipped and well-governed asylums and hospitals, in the bureaux of charity, their resources are no longer inferior to their needs, while Christian charity and philanthropic generosity are constantly operating in all directions to fill the empty drawers; legacies and private donations, after 1802, authorized by the Council of State, multiply; we see them swelling the pages of the "Bulletin des Lois."31140 From 1800 to 1845, the hospitals and asylums are thus to receive more than 72 millions, and the charity bureaux over 49 millions; from 1800 to 1878, all together will thus receive more than 415 millions.31141 The old patrimony of the poor is again reconstituted piece by piece; and on January 1st, 1833, asylums and hospitals, with their 51 millions of revenue, are able to support 154,000 elderly and the sickly.31142 Like public charity, public education again becomes effective; Fourcroy, after 1806,31143 lists 29 organized and full lycÉes; besides these, 370 communal secondary schools and 377 private secondary schools are open and receive 50,200; there are 25,000 children in the 4500 schools. Finally, in 1815,31144 we find in France, restored to its ancient boundaries, 12 faculties of Law or Medicine with 6,329 students, 36 lycÉes with 9000 pupils, 368 colleges with 28,000 pupils, 41 small seminaries with 5233 pupils, 1255 boarding-schools and private institutions with 39,623 pupils, and 22,348 primary schools with 737,369 scholars; as far as can be gathered, the proportion of men and women able to read and to sign their name is raised under the empire up to and beyond the figures31145 it had reached previous to 1789. In this manner are the worst damages repaired. The three new administrative services, with a different set-up, do the job of the old ones and, at the expiration of twenty-five years, give an almost equal return.—In sum, the new proprietor of the great structure sacked by the Revolution has again set up the indispensable apparatus for warming, lighting and ventilation; as he knows his own interests perfectly, and is poorly off in ready money, he contributes only a minimum of the expense; in other respects, he has grouped together his tenants into syndicates, into barracks, in apartments, and, voluntarily or involuntarily, he has put upon them the burden of cost. In the meantime, he has kept the three keys of the three engines in his own cabinet, in his own hands, for himself alone; henceforth, it is he who distributes throughout the building, on each story and in every room, light, air and heat. If he does not distribute the same quantity as before he at least distributes whatever is necessary; the tenants can, at last, breathe comfortably, see clearly and not shiver; after ten years of suffocation, darkness and cold they are too well satisfied to wrangle with the proprietor, discuss his ways, and dispute over the monopoly by which he has constituted himself the arbitrator of their wants.—The same thing is done in the material order of things, in relation to the highways, dikes, canals, and structures useful to the people: here also he repairs or creates through the same despotic initiative, * with the same economy,31146 * the same apportionment of expense,31147 * the same spontaneous or forced aid to those interested, * the same practical efficiency.31148 Summing it up and if we take things as a whole, and if we offset the worse with the better, it may be said that the French people have recovered the possessions they had been missing since 1789: * internal peace, * public tranquility, * administrative regularity, * impartial justice, * a strict police, * security of persons, property and consciences, * liberty in private life, * enjoyment of one's native land, and, on leaving it, the privilege of coming back; * the satisfactory endowment, gratuitous celebration and full exercise of worship; * schools and instruction for the young; * beds, nursing and assistance for the sick, the indigent and for foundlings; * the maintenance of roads and public buildings. So that of the two groups of cravings which troubled men in 1800, the first one, that which dated from the Revolution, has, towards 1808 or 1810, obtained reasonable satisfaction. 3101 (return) 3102 (return) 3103 (return) 3104 (return) 3105 (return) 3106 (return) 3107 (return) 3108 (return) 3109 (return) 3110 (return) 3111 (return) 3112 (return) 3113 (return) 3114 (return) 3115 (return) 3116 (return) 3117 (return) 3118 (return) 3119 (return) 3120 (return) 3121 (return) 3122 (return) 3123 (return) 3124 (return) 3125 (return) 3126 (return) 3127 (return) 3128 (return) 3129 (return) 3130 (return) 3131 (return) 3132 (return) 3133 (return) 3134 (return) 3135 (return) 3136 (return) 3137 (return) 3138 (return) 3139 (return) 3140 (return) 3141 (return) 3142 (return) 3143 (return) 3144 (return) 3145 (return) 3146 (return) 3147 (return) 3148 (return) 3149 (return) 3150 (return) 3151 (return) 3152 (return) 3153 (return) 3154 (return) 3155 (return) 3156 (return) 3157 (return) 3158 (return) 3159 (return) 3160 (return) 3161 (return) 3162 (return) 3163 (return) 3164 (return) 3165 (return) 3166 (return) 3167 (return) 3168 (return) 3169 (return) 3170 (return) 3171 (return) 3172 (return) 3173 (return) 3174 (return) 3175 (return) 3176 (return) 3177 (return) 3178 (return) 3179 (return) 3180 (return) 3181 (return) 3182 (return) 3183 (return) 3184 (return) 3185 (return) 3186 (return) 3187 (return) 3188 (return) 3189 (return) 3190 (return) 3191 (return) 3192 (return) 3193 (return) 3194 (return) 3195 (return) 3196 (return) 3197 (return) 3198 (return) 3199 (return) 31100 (return) 31101 (return) 31102 (return) 31103 (return) 31104 (return) 31105 (return) 31106 (return) 31107 (return) 31108 (return) 31109 (return) 31110 (return) 31111 (return) 31112 (return) 31113 (return) 31114 (return) 31115 (return) 31116 (return) 31117 (return) 31118 (return) 31119 (return) 31120 (return) 31121 (return) 31122 (return) 31123 (return) 31124 (return) 31125 (return) 31126 (return) 31127 (return) 31128 (return) 31129 (return) 31130 (return) 31131 (return) 31132 (return) 31133 (return) 31134 (return) 31135 (return) 31136 (return) 31137 (return) 31138 (return) 31139 (return) 31140 (return) 31141 (return) 31142 (return) 31143 (return) 31144 (return) 31145 (return) 31146 (return) 31147 (return) 31148 (return) |