He attends
their mass immediately on their return, and will put up with no other.
Napoleon, therefore, as First Consul, concludes the Concordat with the
Pope and restores religion. By this Concordat the Pope "declares that
neither himself nor his successors shall in any manner disturb the
purchasers of alienated ecclesiastical property, and that the ownership
of the said property, the rights and revenues derived therefrom, shall
consequently remain incommutable in their hands or in those of their
assigns."
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, 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.
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 favour of new
establishments, and it promises "to surround these donations with the
most invariable respect." Meanwhile, and as a precautionary measure, it
assigns to each its eventual duty; 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 _lycee,_ it must pay for the annual support of the building, while the
pupils, either day-scholars or boarders, pay accordingly.
In this way the heavy expenses are already met, and the state, the
manager-general 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 6,400 scholarships which it establishes and
engages to support; but it confers only about 3,000 of them, and it
distributes nearly all of these among the children of its military or
civil employees, so that the son's scholarshi
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