The Memoirs of General Baron de Marbot

by baron de Jean-Baptiste-Antoine-Marcelin Marbot

Nevertheless, my heart sank at the sight of the high sombre walls of the cloister in which I was to be enclosed. I was eleven years and four months old when I entered this establishment.

Chap. 4.

I shall now give you a brief history of the college of Soreze, as I had it from Dom Abal, a former vice principal, whom I saw often in Paris during the Empire.

When, under Louis XV, it was resolved to clear the Jesuits out of France, their defenders claimed that they alone knew how to educate children. The Benedictines, sworn enemies of the Jesuits, wished to prove that this was not so; but as it did not suit them, although they were studious and learned, to turn themselves into schoolmasters, they selected four of their houses to be turned into colleges, among which was Soreze. There they placed those members of the order who had the most aptitude for teaching, and who could, after working for several years, retire to other monasteries of the order. The new colleges prospered, Soreze in particular stood out, and the crowd of pupils, who hurried there from all parts, made a larger number of teachers necessary. The Benedictines attracted there many learned laymen, who established themselves, with their families, in the little town in which the monastery was situated. The children of these lay teachers, who attended the college free as day pupils, formed, later, a nursery of masters of all the arts and sciences. Eventually the ability to give lessons at a very reasonable cost led to the setting up of several boarding houses for young ladies, and the little town became remarkable in that its citizens, even the simple merchants, had an extended education and practised all the fine arts. A crowd of foreigners, principally English, Spanish and American, came to stay there, in order to be near their sons and daughters during their education.

The Benedictine order was, in general, made up of very easy-going men; they mixed with the world and entertained often, so they were well liked; something that was very useful to those at Soreze when the revolution broke out.

The Principal at that time was Dom Despaulx, a man of the highest integrity, but who, being unwilling to subscribe to the "civic oath" then exacted from the clergy, retired and spent several years in retreat, from where he was later called by the Emperor to fill one of the highest positions in the university.

All the other Benedictines at Soreze took the oath: Dom Ferlus became Principal and Dom Abal Vice-Principal, and the college, in spite of the revolutionary upheavals, continued to operate, following the excellent start which it had been given by Dom Despaulx.

Later, however, a law having been passed requiring the secularising of the monks and the sale of their property, the days of the college seemed numbered; but many of the most important men in the country had been educated there, and they wanted it to be there for their children; the inhabitants of the town, even the labourers and peasants, respected the good fathers and realised that the destruction of the college would result in the ruin of the area. So an arrangement was made whereby Dom Ferlus would become the owner of the college and the immense property which belonged to it. Nobody attended the auction, and the Principal became, at a very modest price, the owner of the huge monastery and the land which it owned. The administrators of the department gave him plenty of time to pay. Everyone lent him assignats which he repaid with some loads of wood; the vast farms of the estate furnished food for the college and, lacking money, Dom Ferlus paid the external teachers in provisions, which suited them very well at a time when famine was rife in France.

On the death of Dom Ferlus, the college passed into the hands of his brother Raymond Ferlus, a former Oration, now married, a third-rate poet and man of little capacity. The college went into decline when the restoration of 1814 allowed back the Jesuits, who were determined to wreak revenge on the Benedictines by destroying the edifice which the latter had erected on the ruins of their order.

The university took sides with the Jesuits. M. Raymond Ferlus handed over the college to his son-in-law, M. Bernard, a former artillery officer who had been one of my contempories. He knew nothing about running such an establishment, and, besides that, a host of other good colleges sprang up as rivals, and Soreze, losing its importance from day to day, became one of the most mediocre institutions of learning.