I.

the communes weary of a voluntary tax from which no benefit CHAP. was derived, was in most cases easily effected; and where the inhabitants of a town, being more desirous of supporting such an establishment, supplied the deficiency of the fund by fresh subscriptions, the University interfered, to harass and disgust them by means contradictory in appearance, but tending to the same end. Being vested with authority over the Regents, it appointed and superseded them at pleasure, removing to the Lyceums those who had deserved the confidence of the neighbourhood, and supplying their place by incompetent and worthless adventurers; it forced upon the colleges professors of sciences which were not taught there, or it forbade them to pursue the same branches of education if they were teaching them with success. Very few of these establishments, and those only in the remotest provinces, escaped the effects of this insidious hostility. The Ecclesiastical Schools had been instituted as seminaries for the priesthood by the Bishops, and were founded and supported by contributions. Some were placed in cities where they were under the Bishop's immediate inspection, and became especial objects of his care: others were fixed in the country, that they might be removed from the corruption of great towns. The children of the poor who appeared by their talents and disposition to be fit subjects for the ministry, were educated there gratuitously; those of the wealthy for a moderate payment. The Romish clergy have always understood that where religious feeling exists, money is never wanting for religious purposes. Poor as Buonaparte had left the Gallican church, large buildings were now bought or erected for these seminaries, and furnished and supported with a liberality which manifested that in the provinces at least there was more religion than suited the wishes of the Imperial government.

Ecclesiastical Schools.

I.

CHAP. Effectual means therefore were pursued for degrading and destroying them. It was decreed that not more than one should be allowed in a department, and that that one must be in a large town where there should be a Lyceum: all others were to be shut up within a fortnight after the promulgation of the law, and their property, moveable and immoveable, applied to the use of the University. The pupils were compelled to attend the Lyceums, and go through the same course of mathematical studies as if they had been designed for the army; they were not allowed to keep the church festivals as holidays, although they wore the habit of ecclesiastical students, and their masters were ranked below those of the meanest boardingschool. The object of the government in thus mortifying the teachers would be defeated by the wise policy of the Romish church, which has taught its ministers to regard every act of humiliation as adding to their stock of merits; the design of disgusting the students with their profession, by the contempt to which they were exposed in what were essentially military academies, and of unfitting them for their intended profession by an intercourse with military pupils, was likely to be more successful.

Lyceums.

It was through the Lyceums more than any other of his institutions that Buonaparte expected to perpetuate the new order of things in these academies it was, that, by a system such as a Jesuit might have devised for the use of a Mamaluke Bey, he trained up the youth of France to become men after his own heart. It was laid down as a maxim by the government that all public education ought to be regulated upon the principles of military discipline, not on those of civil or ecclesiastical police. In the Lyceums, therefore, the pupils were distributed not in forms, or classes, but in companies, each

I.

catechism.

having its serjeant and its corporal; and an officer-instructor, CHAP. as he was called, taught the use of arms to all above twelve and drilled them in military manœuvres. years of age, He was present to superintend all their movements, which were so many evolutions, or marches. The punishments in use were arrest and imprisonment; and for their meals, their studies, their lessons, their sports, prayers, mass, going to bed, and getting up, signal was given by beat of drum. The youth who were thus trained up in military habits had been taught, in their first catechism, that they owed to their Emperor Napoleon First love, respect, obedience, fidelity, military services, and the contributions required for the preservation and defence of the empire, and of his throne: that God, who creates empires and disposes of them according to his will, had, by endowing Napoleon with a profusion of gifts as well in peace as in war, made him the minister of his power, and his image upon earth: to honour and serve the Emperor was therefore the same thing as to honour and serve God; and they who violated their duty towards him, would resist the order which God himself had established, and render themselves worthy of eternal damnation. The religious sanction which was thus given to his authority had its full effect in childhood, and when this feeling lost its influence, devotion to the Emperor had become a habit which every thing around them contributed to confirm and strengthen. There were 150 exhibitions, or burses, appointed for every Lyceum twenty were of sufficient amount to cover the whole expense of the boys' education and maintenance; the others were called half or three-quarter burses, and the relatives of those who obtained them made up the sum which was deficient. The money for these foundations was of course drawn from the public taxes: a third part was even raised by an extra and

VOL. I.

G

CHAP. specific impost upon the respective communes.

I.

Special

military

Youths

But in the eyes

of the pupils every thing flowed from the Emperor himself: he was their immediate benefactor, as well as their future and sure patron; and they looked to him with gratitude and hope at an age when these generous feelings are the strongest. Two hundred and fifty chosen youths were transferred every year to the special military academies, where they were supported by academics. the state; and from whence the army was supplied with a succession of young men, thoroughly educated for their profession, and thoroughly attached to the Emperor Napoleon. Others were appointed to such civil offices as they seemed best qualified to fill, and they carried with them the same attachment to revolutionary principles, and to the person of Buonaparte. This was not all. Buonaparte, far-sighted when not blinded by vanity, or dazzled by ambition, made use of the Lyceums to assist in securing his conquests. Two thousand four hundred conquered youths, chosen from the foreign territories which had been annexed to France, were educated in these academies at the public expense. This measure, said Fourcroy (by whom the scheme of the University was framed), was so congenial with the times, that its advantages would be perceived by all who were capable of understanding the existing circumstances. The inhabitants, he said, who spake a language of their own, and were accustomed to their own institutions, must relinquish their old usages, and adopt those of their new country: they had not the means at home of giving their children the education, the manners, and the character, which were to identify them with the French. What more advantageous destiny could be prepared for them than that which the new system offered? and what more efficacious resource could be given to the government, which had nothing more at heart than to bind these new

from the

countries.

I.

citizens to the French empire?.. Bound to it, indeed, they CHAP. would thus be; the youths by the effect of the education which they received; the parents because the children were hostages for their forced allegiance.

of the Ly

Thus was the scheme of the Lyceums well suited both to Moral effect the foreign and domestic policy of Buonaparte. The tone of ceums. morals which prevailed in these academies is said to have been not less congenial to his purposes. If, indeed, in happier countries, and where the intention is that better principles should be carefully inculcated, schools still are places where good dispositions incur some danger of contamination, and where evil ones have their worst propensities nurtured, and forced as if in a hot-bed, what was to be expected from a system of education planned and directed by men who had grown up during the revolution, or who had taken part in it, and gone through the course of its crimes, .. its agents, or its creatures? A thorough corruption, under the appearance of that regularity which military order produced; a cold irreligion, with which the youths went through the external practices of devotion as they went through the drill; a calculating spirit of insubordination, never breaking out but in concerted movements; speculating selfishness, premature ambition, ferocious manners; .. these were to be expected, and by these, it is said, Genie de la the Lyceums were characterised.

Revolution.

T. 1. 392.

inspection.

The Proviseurs (or masters), the censors, and the teachers System of in the Lyceums and Colleges (which latter were regarded as secondary schools), were bound to celibacy: the professors might marry, but in that case they were not allowed to lodge within the precincts, nor might any woman enter there. Every academy had one or two inspectors, whose business it was from time to time to visit all the Lyceums and inferior schools within