The Modern Regime - free ebook by Hippolyte Taine

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The Modern Regime

Hippolyte Taine

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100 chapters

PREFACE

PREFACE

The following third and last part of the Origins of Contemporary France is to consist of two volumes. After the present volume, the second is to treat of the Church, the School and the Family, describe the modern milieu and note the facilities and obstacles which a society like our own encounters in this new milieu: here, the past and the present meet, and the work already done is continued by the work which is going on under our eyes.—The undertaking is hazardous and more difficult than with th

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CHAPTER I. HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE OF HIS CHARACTER AND GENIUS.

CHAPTER I. HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE OF HIS CHARACTER AND GENIUS.

If you want to comprehend a building, you have to imagine the circumstances, I mean the difficulties and the means, the kind and quality of its available materials, the moment, the opportunity, and the urgency of the demand for it. But, still more important, we must consider the genius and taste of the architect, especially whether he is the proprietor, whether he built it to live in himself, and, once installed in it, whether he took pains to adapt it to how own way of living, to his own necess

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I. Napoleon's Past and Personality.

I. Napoleon's Past and Personality.

Disproportionate in all things, but, stranger still, he is not only out of the common run, but there is no standard of measurement for him; through his temperament, instincts, faculties, imagination, passions, and moral constitution he seems cast in a special mould, composed of another metal than that which enters into the composition of his fellows and contemporaries. Evidently he is not a Frenchman, nor a man of the eighteenth century; he belongs to another race and another epoch. 1103 We dete

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II. The Leader and Statesman

II. The Leader and Statesman

"The human plant," said Alfieri, "is in no country born more vigorous than in Italy"; and never, in Italy, was it so vigorous as from 1300 to 1500, from the contemporaries of Dante down to those of Michael Angelo, Caesar Borgia, Julius II., and Macchiavelli. 1143 The first distinguishing mark of a man of those times is the soundness of his mental instrument. Nowadays, after three hundred years of service, ours has lost somewhat of its moral fiber, sharpness, and versatility: usually the compulso

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III. His acute Understanding of Others.

III. His acute Understanding of Others.

No faculty is more precious for a political engineer; for the forces he acts upon are never other than human passions. But how, except through divination, can these passions, which grow out of the deepest sentiments, be reached? How, save by conjecture, can forces be estimated which seem to defy all measurement? On this dark and uncertain ground, where one has to grope one's way, Napoleon moves with almost absolute certainty; he moves promptly. First of all, he studies himself; indeed, to find o

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IV. His Wonderful Memory.

IV. His Wonderful Memory.

Let us try for a moment to show the range and contents of this intellect; we may have to go back to Caesar to his equal; but, for lack of documents, we have nothing of Caesar but general features—a summary outline. Of Napoleon we have, besides the perfect outline, the features in detail. Read his correspondence, day by day, then chapter by chapter; 1167 for example, in 1806, after the battle of Austerlitz, or, still better, in 1809, after his return from Spain, up to the peace of Vienna; whateve

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V. His Imagination and its Excesses.

V. His Imagination and its Excesses.

But this multitude of information and observations form only the smallest portion of the mental population swarming in this immense brain; for, on his idea of the real, germinate and swarm his concepts of the possible; without these concepts there would be no way to handle and transform things, and that he did handle and transform them we all know. Before acting, he has decided on his plan, and if this plan is adopted, it is one among several others, 1170 after examining, comparing, and giving i

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I. Intense Passions.

I. Intense Passions.

On taking a near view of the contemporaries of Dante and Michael Angelo, we find that they differ from us more in character than in intellect. 1201 With us, three hundred years of police and of courts of justice, of social discipline and peaceful habits, of hereditary civilization, have diminished the force and violence of the passions natural to Man. In Italy, in the Renaissance epoch, they were still intact; human emotions at that time were keener and more profound than at the present day; the

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II. Will and Egoism.

II. Will and Egoism.

It is egoism, not a passive, but an active and intrusive egoism, proportional to the energy and extension of his faculties developed by his education and circumstances, exaggerated by his success and his omnipotence to such a degree that a monstrous colossal I has been erected in society. It expands unceasingly the circle of a tenacious and rapacious grasp, which regards all resistance as offensive, which all independence annoys, and which, on the boundless domain it assigns to itself, is intole

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III. Napoleon's Dominant Passion: Power.

III. Napoleon's Dominant Passion: Power.

We at last confront his dominant passion, the inward abyss into which instinct, education, reflection, and theory have plunged him, and which is to engulf the proud edifice of his fortune—I mean, his ambition. It is the prime motor of his soul and the permanent substance of his will, so profound that he no longer distinguishes between it and himself, and of which he is sometimes unconscious. "I," said he to Roederer, 1248 "I have no ambition," and then, recollecting himself, he adds, with his or

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IV. His Bad Manners.

IV. His Bad Manners.

There are very few monarchs, even absolute, who persistently, and from morning to night, maintain a despotic attitude. Generally, and especially in France, the sovereign makes two divisions of his time, one for business and the other for social duties, and, in the latter case, while always head of the State, he is also head of his house: for he welcomes visitors, entertains his guests, and, that his guests may not be robots, he tries to put them at their ease.—That was the case with Louis XIV. 1

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V. His Policy.

V. His Policy.

Such behavior render social intercourse impossible, especially among the independent and armed personages known as nations or States. This is why they are outlawed in politics and in diplomacy and every head of a State or representative of a country, carefully and on principle, abstains from them, at least with those on his own level. He is bound to treat these as his equals, humor them, and, accordingly, not to give way to the irritation of the moment or to personal feeling; in short, to exerci

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VI. Fundamental Defaults of his System.

VI. Fundamental Defaults of his System.

Other heads of states have similarly passed their lives in doing violence to mankind; but it was for something that was likely to last, and for a national interest. What they deemed the public good was not a phantom of the brain, a chimerical poem due to a caprice of the imagination, to personal passions, to their own peculiar ambition and pride. Outside of themselves and the coinage of their brain a real and substantial object of prime importance existed, namely, the State, the great body of so

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I. The Institution of Government.

I. The Institution of Government.

Every human society requires government, that is to say an authority. No other machinery is more useful. But a machinery is useful only if it is adapted to its purpose; if not it will not work, or may even work contrary to its purpose. Hence, during its construction, one must first of all consider the magnitude of the work it has to do as well as the quality of the materials one has at one's disposal. It is very important to know beforehand whether it will lift 100 or of 100,000 kilograms, wheth

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II. Default of previous government.

II. Default of previous government.

A capital defect at once declared itself in the two principal compositions, in the working gear of the superposed powers and in the balance of the motor powers.—In the first place, the hold given to the central government on its local subordinates was evidently too feeble; with no right to appoint these, it could not select them as it pleased, according to the requirements of the service. Department, district, canton, and commune administrators, civil and criminal judges, assessors, appraisers,

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III. In 1799, the undertaking more difficult and the materials worse.

III. In 1799, the undertaking more difficult and the materials worse.

Twice in succession had the experiment been tried, the monarchical constitution of 1791, and the republican constitution of 1795; twice in succession had the same events followed the same course to attain the same end; twice in succession had the theoretical, cunningly-devised machine for universal protection changed into an efficient and brutal machine for universal oppression. It is evident that if the same machine were started the third time under analogous conditions, one might expect to see

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IV. Motives for suppressing the election of local powers.

IV. Motives for suppressing the election of local powers.

All were agreed on the first point. If any still doubted, they had only to open their eyes, fix them on the local authorities, watch them as soon as born, and follow them throughout the exercise of their functions.—Naturally, in filling each office, the electors had chosen a man of their own species and caliber; their fixed and dominant disposition was accordingly well known; they were indifferent to public matters and therefore their candidate was as indifferent as themselves. Had they shown to

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V. Reasons for centralization.

V. Reasons for centralization.

On this second point, the evidence was scarcely less.—And clearly, the moment the local powers owed their appointment to the central powers, it is plain that the central executive power, on which they depend, should be unique. For, this great team of functionaries, driven from aloft, could not have aloft several distinct drivers; being several and distinct, the drivers would each pull his own way, while the horses, pulling in opposite directions, would do nothing but prance. In this respect the

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VI. Irreconcilable divisions.

VI. Irreconcilable divisions.

It remained to frame a legislative power as a counterpoise to this executive power, so concentrated and so strong.—In organized and tolerably sound communities this point is reached through an elective parliament which represents the public will; it represents this because it is a copy, a faithful reduction of that will on a small scale; it is so organized as to present a loyal and proportionate expression of diverse controlling opinions. In this case, the electoral selection has worked well; on

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VII. Establishment of a new Dictatorship.

VII. Establishment of a new Dictatorship.

Sieyès comprehended this: he detects on the horizon the two specters which, for ten years, have haunted all the governments of France, legal anarchy and unstable despotism; he has found a magic formula with which to exorcise these two phantoms; henceforth "power is to come from above and confidence from below." 2119 —Consequently, the new constitutional act withdraws from the nation the right to elect its deputies; it will simply elect candidates to the deputation and through three degrees of el

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I. Principal service rendered by the public power.

I. Principal service rendered by the public power.

What is the service which the public power renders to the public?—The principal one is the protection of the community against the foreigner, and of private individuals against each other.—Evidently, to do this, it must in all cases be provided with indispensable means, namely: diplomats, an army, a fleet, arsenals, civil and criminal courts, prisons, a police, taxation and tax-collectors, a hierarchy of agents and local supervisors, who, each in his place and attending to his special duty, will

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II. Abusive Government Intervention.

II. Abusive Government Intervention.

Let us follow out the effects of this law when it is the public power which, beyond its principal and peculiar task, undertakes a different task and puts itself in the place of corporate bodies to do their work; when the State, not content with protecting the community and individuals against external or internal oppression, takes upon itself additionally the government of churches, education, or charity, the direction of art, science, and of commercial, agricultural, municipal, or domestic affa

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III. The State attacks persons and property.

III. The State attacks persons and property.

For, in the first place, to govern another corporate body, for example the Church, the State at one time appoints its ecclesiastical heads, as under the old monarchy after the abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction by the Concordat of 1516; at another, as with the Constituent Assembly in 1791, without appointing its heads, it invents a new mode of appointment by imposing on the Church a discipline contrary to its spirit and even to its dogmas. Sometimes it goes further still and reduces a special b

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IV. Abuse of State powers.

IV. Abuse of State powers.

Let us consider the other series of abuses, and the way in which the State performs the service of the corporate bodies it supplants. In the first place there is a chance that, sooner or later, it will shirk this work, for this new service is more or less costly, and, sooner or later, it seems too costly.—Undoubtedly the State has promised to defray expenses; sometimes even, like the Constituent and Legislative assemblies, the revenues for this having been confiscated, it has to furnish an equiv

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V. Final Results of Abusive Government Intervention

V. Final Results of Abusive Government Intervention

And much worse. Not only does the State do the work badly on a domain not its own, roughly, at greater cost, and with smaller yield than spontaneous organizations, but, again, through the legal monopoly which it deems its prerogative, or through its unfair competition, it kills and paralyzes these natural organizations or prevents their birth; and hence so many precious organs, which, absorbed, curbed or abandoned, are lost to the great social body.—And still worse, if this system lasts, and con

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I. Precedents of the new organization.

I. Precedents of the new organization.

Unfortunately, in France at the end of the eighteenth century the bent was taken and the wrong bent. For three centuries and more the public power had increasingly violated and discredited spontaneous bodies: Sometimes it had mutilated them and decapitated them; for example, it had suppressed provincial governments (états) over three-quarters of the territory, in all the electoral districts; nothing remained of the old province but its name and an administrative circumscription. Sometimes, witho

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II. Doctrines of Government.

II. Doctrines of Government.

The theory here agreed with the need, and not alone the recent theory, but again the ancient theory. Long before 1789, public right had elevated the prerogative of centralized power into a dogma and exaggerated it beyond measure. There are three titles under which this power was conferred.—Feudal seignior, and suzerain, that is to say, commander-in-chief of the great resident army whose willing forces had served to reconstruct society in the ninth century, the King, through the remotest of his o

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III. Brilliant Statesman and Administrator.

III. Brilliant Statesman and Administrator.

A new France, not the chimerical, communistic, equalized, and Spartan France of Robespierre and Saint-Just, but a possible real, durable, and yet leveled and uniform France, logically struck out at one blow, all of a piece, according to one general principle, a France, centralized, administrative, and, save the petty egoistic play of individuals, managed in one entire body from top to bottom,—in short, the France which Richelieu and Louis XIV. had longed for, which Mirabeau after 1790 had forese

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IV. Napoleon's barracks.

IV. Napoleon's barracks.

Let us take a nearer view of the master's idea and of the way in which, at this moment, he figures to himself the society which is assuming new shape in his hands. All the leading features of the plan are fixed beforehand in his mind: they are already deeply graven on it through his education and through his instinct. By virtue of this instinct, which is despotic, by virtue of this education, which is classic and Latin, he conceives human associations not in the modern fashion, Germanic and Chri

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V. Modeled after Rome.

V. Modeled after Rome.

Nevertheless, if we go back in time, beyond modern times, beyond the Middle Ages, as far as the antique world, we encounter during the Roman emperors Diocletian's and Constantine's era another monument whose architecture, equally regular, is developed on a still grander scale: back then we are in the natal atmosphere and stand on the natal soil of the classic spirit.—At this time, the human material, more reduced and better prepared than in France, existed similarly in the requisite condition. A

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I. Rule as the mass want to be ruled.

I. Rule as the mass want to be ruled.

However clear and energetic his artistic convictions may be, his mind is absorbed by the preoccupations of the ruler: It is not enough for him that his edifice should be monumental, symmetrical, and beautiful. As he lives in it and derives the greatest benefit from it, he wants first of all that it should be fit to live in, habitable for Frenchmen of the year 1800. Consequently, he takes into account the habits and dispositions of his tenants, the pressing and permanent wants. But these needs mu

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II. The Revolution Ends.

II. The Revolution Ends.

The first of these two needs is urgent, almost physical. For the last ten years, the government has not done its duty, or has ruled in a contrary sense. By turns or at the same time its impotence and injustice have been deplorable. It has committed or allowed too many outrages on persons, property, and consciences. All in all the Revolution did nothing else, and it is time that this should stop. Safety and security for consciences, property, and persons is the loud and unanimous outcry vibrating

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III. Return of the Emigrés.

III. Return of the Emigrés.

The main thing now is to dress the severe wounds it has made and which are still bleeding, with as little torture as possible, for it has cut down to the quick, and its amputations, whether foolish or outrageous, have left sharp pains or mute suffering in the social organism. One hundred and ninety-two thousand names have been inscribed on the list of émigrés 3113 the terms of the law, every émigré is civilly dead, and his possessions have become the property of the Republic;" if he dared return

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IV. Education and Medical Care.

IV. Education and Medical Care.

Other wounds are not less deep, and their cure is not less urgent; for they cause suffering, not only to one class, but to the whole people—that vast majority which the government strives to satisfy. Along with the property of the émigrés, the Revolution has confiscated that of all local or special societies, ecclesiastic or laic, of churches and congregations, universities and academies, schools and colleges, asylums and hospitals, and even the property of the communes. All these fortunes have

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V. Old and New.

V. Old and New.

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-Comté, in the Dombes, Dauphiny and Lyonnais, in

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VI. Religion

VI. Religion

Another plaint is heard, deeper and more universal, that of all souls in which regret for their established church and forms of worship still subsists or is revived. In every religious system discipline and rites depend upon faith, for it is faith alone which suggests or prescribes these; they are the outcome and expansion of this; it attains its ends through these, and manifests itself by them; they are the exterior of which it is the interior; thus, let these be attacked and it is in distress;

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VII. The Confiscated Property.

VII. The Confiscated Property.

How withstand such a just complaint, the universal complaint of the destitute, of relatives, and of believers?—The fundamental difficulty reappears, the nearly insurmountable dilemma into which the Revolution has plunged every steady government, that is to say the lasting effect of revolutionary confiscations and the conflict which sets two rights to the same property against each other, the right of the despoiled owner and the right of the owner in possession. This time, again the fault is on t

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VIII. Public Education.

VIII. Public Education.

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.

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I. Distributive Justice in Allotment of Burdens and Benefits.

I. Distributive Justice in Allotment of Burdens and Benefits.

The other group of needs, dating from long before 1789, involve wants which have survived the Revolution, because the Revolution has not satisfied these. The first, the most tenacious, the most profound, the most inveterate, the most frustrated of all is the desire for distributive justice.—In political society, as in every other society, there are burdens and benefits to be allotted. When the apportionment of these is unbiased, it takes place according to a very simple, self-evident principle:

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II. Equitable Taxation.

II. Equitable Taxation.

In the assignment of public burdens and of public offices Napoleon therefore applies the maxims of the new system of rights, and his practice is in conformity with the theory. For the social order, which, according to the philosophers, is the only just one in itself, is at the same time the most profitable for him: he adds equity because equity is profitable to him.—And first, in the matter of public burdens, there shall be no more exemptions. To relieve any category of taxpayers or of conscript

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III. Formation of Honest, Efficient Tax Collectors

III. Formation of Honest, Efficient Tax Collectors

The collection of a direct tax is a surgical operation performed on the taxpayer, one which removes a piece of his substance: he suffers on account of this and submits to it only because he is obliged to. If the operation is performed on him by other hands he submits to it willingly or not. But that he should do it himself, spontaneously and with his own hands, it is not to be thought of. On the other hand, the collection of a direct tax according to the prescriptions of distributive justice, is

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IV. Various Taxes.

IV. Various Taxes.

This infraction of the principle of distributive justice is in favor of the poor. Through the almost complete exemption of those who have no property the burden of direct taxation falls almost entirely on those who own property. If they are manufacturers, or in commerce, they support still another burden, that of the license tax, which is a supplementary impost proportioned to their probable gains. 3234 Finally, to all these annual and extra taxes, levied on the probable or certain income derive

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V. Conscription or Professional soldiers.

V. Conscription or Professional soldiers.

One tax remains, and the last, that by which the State takes, no longer money, but the person himself, the entire man, soul and body, and for the best years of his life, namely military service. It is the Revolution which has rendered this so burdensome; formerly, it was light, for, in principle, it was voluntary. The militia, alone, was raised by force, and, in general, among the country people; the peasants furnished men for it by casting lots. 3254 But it was simply a supplement to the active

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I. Rights and benefits.

I. Rights and benefits.

Now that the State has just made a new allotment of the burdens and duties which it imposes it must make a new assignment of the rights and benefits it confers. Distributive justice, on both sides, and long before 1789, was defective, and, under the monarchy, exclusions had become as obnoxious as exemptions; all the more because, through a double iniquity, the ancient Régime in each group distinguished two other groups, one to which it granted every exemption, and the other which it made subject

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II. Ambitions during the Ancient Regime.

II. Ambitions during the Ancient Regime.

To make one's way, get ahead, and succeed in the world is now the dominant thought in the minds of men. Before 1789, this thought had not acquired sovereign control in their minds; it found that there were rival ideas to contend with, and it had only half-developed itself; its roots had not sunk down deep enough to monopolize the activity of the imagination, to absorb the will and possess the mind entirely; and the reason is that it lacked both air and victuals. Promotion, under the old monarchy

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III. Ambition and Selection.

III. Ambition and Selection.

But the Revolution arrived and the ambitions which, under the ancient Régime, found a field abroad or cooled down at home, arose on the natal soil and suddenly expanded beyond all calculation. After 1789, France resembles a hive in a state of excitement; in a few hours, in the brief interval of an August morning, each insect puts forth two huge wings, soars aloft and "all whirl together pell-mell;" many fall to the ground half cut to pieces and begin to crawl upward as before; others, with more

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IV. Napoleon, Judge-Arbitrator-Ruler.

IV. Napoleon, Judge-Arbitrator-Ruler.

Behold him, at last, this judge-arbitrator. On the 8th November, 1799, he appears and takes his seat, and that very evening he goes to work, makes his selections among the competitors and gives them their commissions. He is a military chieftain and has installed himself; consequently he is not dependent on a parliamentary majority, and any insurrection or gathering of a mob is at once rendered abortive by his troops before it is born. Street sovereignty is at an end; Parisians are long to rememb

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IV. The Struggle for Office and Title.

IV. The Struggle for Office and Title.

Let us now consider the career which he thus opens to them and the prizes he offers. These prizes are in full view, ranged along each racecourse, graduated according to distances and more and more striking and magnificent. Every ambition is provided for, the highest as well as the lowest, and these are countless; for they consist of offices of every grade in the civil and military hierarchies of a great centralized State whose intervention is universal, under a government which systematically to

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V. Self-esteem and a good Reputation.

V. Self-esteem and a good Reputation.

A new force, extraordinary, is just apparent in history, a spiritual force analogous to that which formerly stimulated souls in Spain in the sixteenth century, in European the time of the crusades, and in Arabia in the time of Mahomet. It stimulates the faculties to excess, increases energy tenfold, transports man beyond or above himself, creates enthusiasts and heroes, blinding or rendering men crazy, and hence the irresistible conquerors and rulers. It stamps its imprint and leaves its memoria

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I. Human Incentives.

I. Human Incentives.

So long as a man takes an interest only in himself, in his own fortune, in his own advancement, in his own success, his interests are trivial: all that is, like himself, of little importance and of short duration. Alongside of the small boat which he steers so carefully there are thousands and millions of others of like it; none of them are worth much, and his own is not worth more. However well he may have provisioned and sailed it, it will always remain what it is, slight and fragile; in vain

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II. Local Community.

II. Local Community.

Let us first consider local society whether a province, a department, or a county. For the past ten years (1789-99), the legislator has unceasingly deformed and assaulted. On his side, he refuses to open his eyes; preoccupied with theories, he will not recognize it for what it is in reality, a society of a distinct species, different from the State, with its own peculiar aims, its limits marked out, its members prescribed, its statutes drawn up, everything formed and defined beforehand. As it is

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III. Essential Public Local Works.

III. Essential Public Local Works.

All local societies are of this kind, each limited to a certain territory and included with others like it inside a larger area, each possessing two budgets depending on whether it is a distinct body or member of a larger corporation, each, from the commune to the department or province, instituted on a basis of interests which make them jointly but involuntarily liable.—There are two of these important interests which, as in the Annecy building, elude human arbitrariness, which demand common ac

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IV. Local associations.

IV. Local associations.

Such is in itself local society and, with or without the legislator's permission, we find it to be a private syndicate, 4109 analogous to many others. 4110 Whether communal or departmental, it concerns, combines, and serves none but the inhabitants of one circumscription; its success or failure does not interest the nation, unless indirectly, and through a remote reaction, similar to the slight effect which, for good or ill, the health or sickness of one Frenchman produces on the mass of Frenchm

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V. Local versus State authority.

V. Local versus State authority.

From and after 1789, the State, passing through intermittent fits and starts of brutal despotism, had resigned its commission. Under its almost nominal sovereignty, there were in France forty-four thousand small States enjoying nearly sovereign power, and, most frequently, sovereignty in reality. 4111 Not only did the local community manage its private affairs, but again, in the circumscription, each exercised the highest public functions, disposed of the national guard, of the police force, and

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VI. Local Elections under the First Consul.

VI. Local Elections under the First Consul.

At the beginning, an effort was made to put in practice the constitutional principle proposed by Sieyès: Power in future, according the accepted formula, must come from above and confidence from below. To this end, in the year IX, the assembled citizens appointed one-tenth of their number, about 500,000 communal notables, and these, likewise assembled, appointed also one-tenth of their number, about 50,000 departmental notables. The government selected from this list the municipal councilors of

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VII. Municipal and general councillors under the Empire.

VII. Municipal and general councillors under the Empire.

Observe the selections which he imposes on himself beforehand; these selections are those to which he has tied down the electoral bodies. Being the substitute of these bodies, he takes, as they do, general councilors from those in the department who pay the most taxes, and municipal councilors from those most taxed in the canton. One the other hand, by virtue of the municipal law, it is from the municipal councilors that he chooses the mayor. Thus the local auxiliaries and agents he employs are

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VIII. Excellence of Local Government after Napoleon.

VIII. Excellence of Local Government after Napoleon.

Such is the spirit of the institution and such is its form. After 1814 and 1815, after the fall of the Empire and the Restoration, the institution subsists and remains as it was before in form and in spirit: it is always the government which appoints and directs all the representatives of local society, in the department, in the commune, and in the intermediate circumscriptions, the prefect, sub-prefects, mayors and assistants, the councilors of the department, of the arrondissement and of the c

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I. Introduction of Universal suffrage.

I. Introduction of Universal suffrage.

Neither lips nor heart are capable of pronouncing the above invigorating and conclusive phrase after a silence of 30 years. That local society ought to be a private association, does not interest those who are concerned, while the legislator does not permit it. Indeed, after the year VIII (1799), the State (Napoleon) introduces into the machine the new motivation described above. After the revolution of 1830, 4201 the municipal and general councilors become elective and are appointed by a limite

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II. Universal suffrage.

II. Universal suffrage.

In effect, direct universal suffrage, counted by heads, is in local society a discordant element, a monstrous system, to which it is adverse. Constituted as this is, not by human judgment, but by the preponderance of numbers and their force, its mechanism is determined beforehand; it excludes certain wheels and connections. 4206 That is why the legislator must write laws which reflect the nature of our existence, or, at least, translate this as closely as he can, without any gross contradiction.

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III. Equity in taxation.

III. Equity in taxation.

Such is the rule in every association of interests, even in stock companies in which the distribution of charges allows of no favor or disfavor to any associate. It must be noted that, in these companies, co-operation is not compulsory, but voluntary; the associates are not, as in the local society, conscripts enlisted under the constraint of physical solidarity, but subscribers bound together under the impulsion of a deliberate preference, each remaining in its of his own free will just as he e

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IV. On unlimited universal suffrage.

IV. On unlimited universal suffrage.

If the government, in France, does just the opposite, it is at the height of a violent and sudden revolution, forced by the party in power and by popular prejudice, through deductive reasoning, and through contagion. According to revolutionary and French usage, the legislator was bound to institute uniformity and to make things symmetrical; having placed universal suffrage in political society, he was likewise determined to place it in local society. He had been ordered to apply an abstract prin

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V. Rural or urban communes.

V. Rural or urban communes.

Let us consider these results in turn in the small and in the great communes; clear enough and distinct at the two extremities of the scale, they blend into each other at intermediate degrees, because here they combine together, but in different proportions, according as the commune, higher or lower in the scale, comes nearer to the village or to the city.—On this territory, too, subdivided since 1789, and, so to say, crumbled to pieces by the Constituent Assembly, the small communes are enormou

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VI. The larger Communes.

VI. The larger Communes.

Let us now look at the other side of the scale, on the side of the large urban communes, of which there are 223, with above 10,000 inhabitants, 90 of these above 20,000 inhabitants, 9 of the latter above 100,000 inhabitants, and Paris, which has 2,300,000. 4228 We see at the first glance cast upon an average specimen of these human anthills, a town containing from 40,000 to 50,000 souls, how vast and complex the collective undertaking becomes, how many principal and accessory services the commun

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VII. Local society in 1880.

VII. Local society in 1880.

Before 1870, when he appointed the mayors and when the council general held its sessions only fifteen days in the year, the prefect was almost omnipotent; still, at the present day, (1889), "his powers are immense," 4232 and his power remains preponderant. He has the right to suspend the municipal council and the mayor, and to propose their dismissal to the head of the state. Without resorting to this extremity, he holds them with a strong hand, and always uplifted over the commune, for he can v

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VIII. Final result in a tendency to bankruptcy.

VIII. Final result in a tendency to bankruptcy.

Such, in brief, is the history of local society from 1789 down to 1889. After the philosophic demolition of the Revolution and the practical constructions of the Consulate, it could no longer be a small patrimony, something to take pride in, an object of affection and devotion to its inhabitants. The departments and communes have become more or less vast lodging-houses, all built on the same plan and managed according to the same regulations one as passable as the other, with apartments in them

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PREFACE By André Chevrillon.

PREFACE By André Chevrillon.

"To treat of the Church, the School, and the Family, describe the modern milieu and note the facilities and obstacles which a society like our own encounters in this milieu, such was the program of the last 5101 section of the "Origins of Contemporary France." The preceding volume is a continuation of the first part of this program; after the commune and the department, after local societies, the author was to study moral and intellectual bodies in France as organized by Napoleon. This study com

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I. Napoleon's Objectives.

I. Napoleon's Objectives.

After the centralizing and invading State has taken hold of local societies there is nothing left for it but to cast its net over moral societies 5107 , and this second haul is more important than the first one; for, if local societies are based on the proximity of physical bodies and habitations, the latter are formed out of the accord which exists between minds and souls; in possessing these, the hold is no longer on the outside but on the inside of man, his thought, his will; the incentive wi

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II. Napoleon's opinions and methods.

II. Napoleon's opinions and methods.

This is what Napoleon does. As usual with him, in order to see deeper into others, he begins by examining himself: "To say from whence I came, what I am, or where I am going, is above my comprehension. I am the watch that runs, but unconscious of itself." These questions, which we are unable to answer, "drive us onward to religion; we rush forward to welcome her, for that is our natural tendency. But knowledge comes and we stop short. Instruction and history, you see, are the great enemies of re

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III. Dealing with the Pope.

III. Dealing with the Pope.

"Had no Pope existed," he says again, 5126 "it would have been necessary to create him for the occasion, in the same way that the Roman consuls appointed a dictator for difficult circumstances." Only such a dictator could effect the coup d'état which the First Consul needed, in order to constitute the head of the new government a patron of the Catholic Church, to bring independent or refractory priests under subjection, to sever the canonical cord which bound the French clergy to its exiled supe

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IV. The Pope, Napoleon's employee.

IV. The Pope, Napoleon's employee.

Over and above this positive and real service obtained from the sovereign pontiff, he awaits others yet more important and undefined, and principally his future coronation in Notre Dame. Already, during the negotiations for the Concordat, La Fayette had observed to him with a smile: 5133 "You want the holy oil dropped on your head"; to which he made no contradictory answer. On the contrary, he replied, and probably too with a smile: "We shall see! We shall see!" Thus does he think ahead, and his

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V. State domination of all religion.

V. State domination of all religion.

In carrying out this plan, he will use the French clergy in mastering the Pope, as the Pope has been made use of in mastering the French clergy. To this end, before completing the Concordat and decreeing the Organic Articles, he orders for himself a small library, consisting of books on ecclesiastical law. The Latin works of Bossuet are translated for him, and he has drawn up an exposition of the Gallican parliamentary doctrine. The first thing is to go down to the roots of the subject, which he

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VI. Napoleon Executes the Concordat.

VI. Napoleon Executes the Concordat.

These are the grand lines of the new ecclesiastical establishment, and the general connections by which the Catholic Church, like an apartment in a building, finds itself included in and incorporated with the State. It need not disconnect itself under the pretext of making itself more complete; there it is, built and finished; it cannot add to or go beyond this; no collateral and supplementary constructions are requisite which, through their independence, would derange the architectural whole, n

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VII. System to which the regular clergy is subject.

VII. System to which the regular clergy is subject.

The secular clergy remains, better protected, it seems, and by a less precarious statute, for this statute is an international and diplomatic act, a solemn and bilateral treaty which binds the French government, not only to itself but to another government, to an independent sovereign and the recognized head of the whole Catholic Church.—Consequently, it is of prime importance to rebuild and raise higher the barriers which, in ancient France, separated the secular clergy from the Pope, the custo

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VIII. Administrative Control.

VIII. Administrative Control.

Thus is a conquered country treated. He is, in relation to the Church, as in a conquered country. 5194 Like Westphalia or Holland, she is a naturally independent country which he has annexed by treaty, which he has been able to include but not absorb in his empire, and which remains invincibly distinct. The temporal sovereign, in a spiritual society, especially such a sovereign as he is,—nominally Catholic, scarcely Christian, at best a deist and from time to time as it suits,—will never be othe

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IX. The Imperial Catechism

IX. The Imperial Catechism

From the first year the effect arrived at is better than could be expected. "Look at the clergy," 51107 said the First Consul to Roederer; "every day shows that in spite of themselves their devotion to the government is increasing, and much beyond their anticipation. Have you seen the pastoral declaration of Boisgelin, archbishop of Tours?... He says that the actual government is the legitimate government, that God disposes of thrones and kings as he pleases and that he adopts the chiefs whom th

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X. The Council of 1811.—The Concordat of 1813.

X. The Council of 1811.—The Concordat of 1813.

Similar to the Russian expedition, this is the great and last throw of the dice, the decisive and most important of his ecclesiastical undertakings, as the other is in political and military affairs. Just as, under his leadership, he forces by constraint and, under his lead, a coalition of the political and military powers of his Europe against the Czar,—Austria, Prussia, the Confederation of the Rhine, Holland, Switzerland, the kingdom of Italy, Naples, and even Spain,—so does he by constraint

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I. The Catholic System.

I. The Catholic System.

In 1801, at Rome, pending the negotiations for the Concordat, when Pius VII. still hesitated about the deposition in mass of the survivors of the ancient French episcopacy, clear-sighted observers already remarked, "Let this Concordat which the First Consul desires be completed, 5201 and you will see, on its ratification, its immense importance and the power it will give to Rome over the episcopacy throughout the universe."—In effect, through this "extraordinary, nearly unexampled" act of author

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II. The Bishops and their new Situation.

II. The Bishops and their new Situation.

The change brought about in the condition and role of the bishop was not less grave. Along with the court noblesse and great ecclesiastical property, we see the prelate of the old régime disappearing by degrees, the younger son of a noble family, promoted by favor and very young, endowed with a large income and much more a man of the world than of the Church. In 1789, out of 134 bishops or archbishops, only 5 were of plebeian origin; in 1889, out of 90 bishops or archbishops there are only 4 of

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III. The new Bishop.

III. The new Bishop.

In order to make troops march, a staff, even a croisier, is not enough; to compulsory subordination voluntary subordination must be added; therefore, legal authority in the chief should be accompanied with moral authority; otherwise he will not be loyally supported and to the end. In 1789, this was not the case with the bishop; on two occasions, and at two critical moments, the clergy of the inferior order formed a separate band, at first at the elections, by selecting for deputies curés and not

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IV. The subordinate clergy.

IV. The subordinate clergy.

A clergy submissive in mind and feeling, long prepared by its condition and education for faith and obedience, acts under the sway of this sovereign and consecrated hand. 5261 Among the 40,000 curés and desservans "more than 35,000 belong to the laboring class of workmen and peasants," 5262 not the first class of peasants, but the second class, the poorer families earning their daily bread and often with a good many children. Under the pressure of the ambient atmosphere and of the modern régime,

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I. The regular clergy.

I. The regular clergy.

However correct the life of a secular priest may be, he stills belongs to his century. Like a layman, he has his own domicile and fireside, his parsonage in the country with a garden, or an apartment in town—in any event, his own home and household, a servant or housekeeper, who is often either his mother or a sister; in short, a suitable enclosure set apart, where he can enjoy his domestic and private life free of the encroachments on his public and ecclesiastical life, analogous to that of a l

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II. Evolution of the Catholic Church.

II. Evolution of the Catholic Church.

In the thirteenth century, to the communicant on his knees about to receive the sacrament, the Host often faded out of sight; it disappeared, and, in its place, appeared an infant or the radiant features of the Savior and, according to the Church doctors, this was not an illusion but an illumination. 5316 The veil had lifted, and the soul found itself face to face with its object, Jesus Christ present in Eucharist. This was second sight, infinitely superior in certainty and reach to the former,

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III. The Church today.

III. The Church today.

Such is the Catholic Church of to-day, a State constructed after the type of the old Roman empire, independent and autonomous, monarchical and centralized, with a domain not of territory but of souls and therefore international, under an absolute and cosmopolite sovereign whose subjects are simultaneously subjects of other non-religious rulers. Hence, for the Catholic Church a situation apart in every country, more difficult than for Greek, Slavic or Protestant churches; these difficulties vary

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IV. Contrasting Vistas.

IV. Contrasting Vistas.

Other disadvantages of the French system are still worse.—In (the nineteenth) century, an extraordinary event occurs. Already about the middle of the preceding century, the discoveries of scientists, coordinated by the philosophers, had afforded the sketch in full of a great picture, still in course of execution and advancing towards completion, a picture of the physical and moral universe. In this sketch the point of sight was fixed, the perspective designed, the various distances marked out, t

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I. Public instruction and its three effects.

I. Public instruction and its three effects.

AT fixed intervals a man, in a room, gathers around him children, youths, a group of young people, ten, twenty, thirty or more; he talks to them for one or two hours and they listen to him. They sit alongside of each other, look in each other's faces, touch each other's elbows, feel that they are class-mates, of the same age and occupied with the same tasks. They form a society and in two ways, one with another and all with the master. Hence they live under a statute: every society has one of it

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II. Napoleon's Educational Instruments.

II. Napoleon's Educational Instruments.

Such is the aim of Napoleon: 6101 "In the establishment of an educational corps," he says to himself, 6102 "my principal aim is to secure the means for directing political and moral opinions." Still more precisely, he counts on the new institution to set up and keep open for inspection a universal and complete police registry. "This registry must be organized in such a way as to keep notes on each child after age of nine years." 6103 Having seized adults he wants to seize children also, watch an

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III. Napoleon's machinery.

III. Napoleon's machinery.

To effect this purpose, he requires a good instrument, some great human machine which designed, put together and set up by himself, henceforth works alone and of its own accord, without deviating or breaking down, conformably to his instructions and always under his eye, but without the necessity of his lending a hand and personally interfering in its predetermined and calculated movement. The finest engines of this sort are the religious orders, masterpieces of the Catholic, Roman and governmen

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VI. Objects and sentiments.

VI. Objects and sentiments.

What is the object of this service?—Previous to the Revolution, when directed by, or under the supervision of, the Church, its great object was the maintenance and strengthening of the faith of the young. Successor of the old kings, the new ruler underlines 6150 among "the bases of education," "the precepts of the Catholic religion," and this phrase he writes himself with a marked intention; when first drawn up, the Council of State had written the Christian religion; Napoleon himself, in the de

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V. Military preparation and the cult of the Emperor.

V. Military preparation and the cult of the Emperor.

This general preparation is specified and directed by Napoleon as a policy, and, as he specially needs soldiers, the school, in his hands, becomes the vestibule of the barracks. Right away the institution received a military turn and spirit, and this form, which is essential to him, becomes more and more restricted. In 1805, during four months, 6162 Fourcroy, ordered by the Emperor, visits the new lycées "with an inspector of reviews and a captain or adjutant-major, who everywhere gives instruct

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I. Primary Instruction.

I. Primary Instruction.

Such is secondary education, his most personal, most elaborate, most complete work; the other two stories of the educational system, under and over, built in a more summary fashion, are adapted to the middle story and form, the three together, a regular monument, of which the architect has skillfully balanced the proportions, distributed the rooms, calculated the service and designed the facade and scenic effect. "Napoleon," says a contemporary adversary, 6201 "familiar with power only in its mo

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II. Higher Education.

II. Higher Education.

Superior instruction, the most important of all, remains. For, in this third and last stage of education, the minds and opinions of young people from eighteen to twenty-four years of age are fully formed. It is then that, already free and nearly ripe, these future occupants of busy careers, just entering into practical life, shape their first general ideas, their still hazy and half-poetic views of things, their premature and foregone conclusions respecting man, nature, society and the great int

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III. On Science, Reason and Truth.

III. On Science, Reason and Truth.

Everywhere else, the direction and reach of superior instruction are similar. In the Faculties of Science and Literature, much more than in the Faculties of Medicine and of Law, the principal employment of the professors is the awarding of grades.—They likewise confer the titles of bachelor, licentiate and doctor; but the future bachelor is not prepared by them; the lycée furnishes him for the examination, fresh from its benches; they have then no audience but future licentiates, that is to say

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IV. Napoleon's stranglehold on science.

IV. Napoleon's stranglehold on science.

This "National Institute," is the Government's tool and an appendage of the State. This is in conformity with the traditions of the old monarchy and with the plans, sketched out and decreed by the revolutionary assemblies, 6236 in conformity with the immemorial principle of French law which enlarges the interference of the central power, not only in relation to public instruction but to science, literature and the fine arts. It is the State which has produced and shaped it, which has given to it

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V. On Censorship under Napoleon.

V. On Censorship under Napoleon.

If Napoleon in this manner takes precautions against those who think, it is only because their thoughts, should they be written down, might reach the public, 6251 and only the sovereign alone has the right to talk in public. Between writer and readers, every communication is intercepted beforehand by a triple and quadruple line of defenses through which a long, tortuous and narrow wicket is the only passage, and where the manuscript, like a bundle of suspicious goods, is overhauled and repeatedl

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I. Evolution of the Napoleonic machine.

I. Evolution of the Napoleonic machine.

After him, the springs of his machine relax; and so do, naturally, the two groups controlled by the machine. The first, that of adult men, frees itself the most and the soonest: during the following half century, we see the preventive or repressive censorship of books, journals and theatres, every special instrument that gags free speech, relaxing its hold, breaking down bit by bit and at last tumbling to the ground. Even when again set up and persistently and brutally applied, old legal muzzles

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II. Educational monopoly of Church and State.

II. Educational monopoly of Church and State.

The day after the 24th of February 1848, 6328 M. Cousin, meeting M. de Remusat on the quay Voltaire, raised his arms towards heaven and exclaimed: "Let us hurry and fall on our knees in front of the bishops—they alone can save us now!" While M. Thiers, with equal vivacity, in the parliamentary committee exclaimed: "Cousin, Cousin, do you comprehend the lesson we have received? Abbé Dupanloup is right." 6329 Hence the new law. 6330 M. Beugnot, who presented it, clearly explains its aims and objec

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III. Internal Vices

III. Internal Vices

Meanwhile, the innate vices of the primitive system have lasted and, and, among others, the worst of all, the internat 6344 under the discipline of barracks or convent, while the university, through its priority and supremacy, in contact with or contiguously, has communicated this discipline at first to its subordinates, and afterward to its rivals.—In 1887, 6345 in the State lycées and colleges, there are more than 39,000 boarding-schools (internes) while, in the ecclesiastic establishments, it

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IV. Cramming and Exams Compared to Apprenticeship

IV. Cramming and Exams Compared to Apprenticeship

Let us now consider another effect of the primitive institution, not less pernicious. On leaving the lycée after the philosophy class, the system supposes that a general education is fully obtained; there is not question of a second one, ulterior and superior, that of universities. In place of these encyclopedic universities, of which the object is free teaching and the free progress of knowledge, it establishes special State schools, separate from each other, each confined to a distinct branch,

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V. Public instruction in 1890.

V. Public instruction in 1890.

Such is the singular and final result brought about by the institution of the year X (or 1801), due to the intervention of the grossly leveling Jacobin spirit. 6384 Indeed, since 1871, and especially since 1879, this spirit, through Napoleonic forms, has given breath, impulse and direction, and these forms suit it. On the principle that education belongs to the State, Napoleon and the old Jacobins were in accord; what he in fact established they had proclaimed as a dogma; hence the structure of

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VI. Summary.

VI. Summary.

In this manner does the education by the State end. (in 1890) When a matter is taken out of the hands of those who are concerned and handed over to a third and differently motivated party, it cannot end well; sooner or later, this basic defect will dominate and lead to unexpected results. In this case a growing disparity between education and life. On the three levels of instruction, infancy, adolescence and youth, the actual theoretical and direct instruction is extended and overloaded with the

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