construction of schools; no salary was assured to the instructor beyond
the school fees. The central schools were suppressed; their method of
mixed instruction had succeeded badly. The project of the First Consul
instituted thirty-two Lycees, intended for instruction in the classical
languages and in the sciences. He had little taste for the free exercise
of reflection and human thought; instruction in history and philosophy
found no place in his programme. "We have ceased to make of history a
particular study," said M. Roederer, "because history properly so called
only needs to be read to be understood." The great revival of historic
studies in France was soon to protest eloquently against a theory which
separated the present from the past, and which left in consequence a most
grievous blank in education. Military exercises were everywhere carefully
organized. Six thousand four hundred scholarships, created by the State,
were to draw the young into the new establishments, or into the schools
already founded to which the State extended its grants and its patronage.
Without being officially abolished, the freedom of secondary instruction
was thus subjected to a destructive rivalry, and the action of the
government penetrated into the bosom of all families. "What more sweet,"
said M. Roederer, "than to see one's children in a manner adopted by the
State, at the moment when it becomes a question of providing for their
establishment?" "This is only a commencement," said the First Consul to
Fourcroy, the principal author of the project, and its clever defender
before the Corps Legislatif; "by and by we shall do better."

The Treaty of Amiens had already been signed several months (25th March,
1802), but it had not yet been presented for the ratification of the Corps
Legislatif; this was the supreme satisfaction reserved for it, and the
brilliant consummation of its labors. It was at the same time the price
paid in advance for a manifestation long prepared for, but which, however,
still remained obscure even among those most trusted by the all-powerful