ention, all their possessions, the real-estate and the debts due
them, had been confiscated;[3152] and, in the restitution to them of the
remainder at the end of three years, a portion of their real-estate is
found to have been sold, while their claims, settled by assignats or
converted into state securities, had died out or dwindled to such an
extent that, in 1800, after the final bankruptcy of the assignats and
of the state debt, the ancient patrimony of the poor is two-thirds or
one-half reduced.[3153] It is for this reason that the eight hundred
charitable institutions which, in 1789, had one hundred thousand or
one hundred and ten thousand occupants, could not support more than
one-third or one-half of them; on the other hand, it may be estimated
that the number of applicants tripled; from which it follows that, in
1800, there is less than one bed in the hospitals and asylums for six
children, either sick or infirm.

V. Old and New.

Complaints of the Poor, of Parents, and of Believers.
--Contrast between old and new educational facilities.
--Clandestine instruction.--Jacobin teachers.

Under this wail of the wretched who vainly appeal for help, for nursing
and for beds, another moan is heard, not so loud, but more extensive,
that of parents unable to educate their children, boys or girls, and
give them any species of instruction either primary or secondary.

Previous to the Revolution "small schools" were innumerable: in
Normandy, Picardy, Artois, French Flanders, Lorraine and Alsace, in the
Ile-de-France, in Burgundy and Franche-Comte, in the Dombes, Dauphiny
and Lyonnais, in the Comtat, in the Cevennes and in Bearn,[3154] almost
as many schools could be counted as there were parishes, in all probably
twenty or twenty-five thousand for the thirty-seven thousand parishes
in France, and all frequented and serviceable; for, in 1789, forty-seven
men out of a hundred, and twenty-six girls or women out of a hundred,
could read and write or, at least, sign their names.[3155]--And these
schools cost the treasury nothing, next to nothing to the tax-payer, and
very little to parents. In many places, the congregations, supported
by their own property, furnished male or female teachers,--Freres de la
Doctrine Chretienne, Freres de Saint-Antoine, Ursulines, Visitandines,
Filles de la Charite, Saeurs de Saint-Charles, Saeurs de la Providence,
Saeurs de la Sagesse, Saeurs de Notre-Dame de la Croix, Vatel