e the impracticable Utopia
which the philosophers of the eighteenth century wanted to impose on
lay society now becomes the effective regime under which the religious
communities are going to live. In all of them, the governors are elected
by the governed; whether the suffrage is universal or qualified, one
vote is as good as another; votes are counted by heads, and, at
stated intervals, the sovereign majority uses its right anew; with the
Carmelites, it is every three years and to elect by secret ballot, not
alone one authority but all the authorities, the prior, the sub-prior
and the three clavieres.[5307]--Once elected, the chief, in conformity
with his mandate, remains a mandatory, that is to say a laborer assigned
a certain work, and not a privileged person enjoying a gratification.
His dignity is not a dispensation, but an additional burden; along with
the duties of his office, he subjects himself to an observance of the
rules--having become a general, he is no better off than the simple
soldier; he rises as early and his daily life is no better; his cell is
as bare and his personal support not more expensive. He who commands
ten thousand others lives as poorly, under the same strict instructions,
with as few conveniences and with less leisure than the meanest
brother.[5308] Over and above the austerities of ordinary discipline
this or that superior imposed on himself additional mortifications which
were so great as to astonish as well as edify his monks. Such is the
ideal State of the theorist, a Spartan republic, and for all, including
the chiefs, an equal ration of the same black broth. There is another
resemblance, still more profound. At the base of this republic lies
the corner-stone designed in anticipation by Rousseau, then hewn and
employed, well or ill, in the constitutions or plebiscites of the
Revolution, the Consulate and the Empire, to serve as the foundation of
the complete edifice. This stone is a primitive and solemn agreement by
all concerned, a social contract, a pact proposed by the legislator and
accepted by the citizens; except that, in the monastic pact, the will of
the acceptors is unanimous, earnest, serious, deliberate and permanent,
while, in the political pact, it is not so; thus, whilst the latter
contract is a theoretical fiction, the former is an actual verity.

For, in the small religious cite, all precautions are taken to have the
future citizen know for what and how far he engages