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.[31103] 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 "Sæurs de Saint-Thomas," the "Sæurs de Saint-Charles," the "Sæurs 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,[31104] 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;[31105] 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,[31106] 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[31107] "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.[31108]
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,[31109] 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;[31110] 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.[31111] Let the clergy benefit by occasional contributions;[31112] 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,[31113] 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;[31114] 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."[31115] 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,[31116] 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;[31117] for the diocese of Grenoble, it allows only eight in seven years.[31118] 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.[31119]—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.[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.