iniquitous decree was, that exactly in proportion as any particular Lyceum was known to be ill conducted, and as parents were unwilling to entrust their children there, it became impossible for any better seminary to exist in its neighbourhood. ♦COMMUNAL COLLEGES.♦ There were two other kind of seminaries which it was in like manner the intention of the Imperial government to destroy by indirect means, ... the Communal Colleges and the Ecclesiastical Schools. More than four hundred of the former had been founded at the expense of their respective _communes_, as soon as any hope appeared that a settled order of things might be maintained in France. But because every thing far and near was regulated by the new despotism, the money which they levied upon themselves for this purpose went, like other imposts, to the capital: and was thrown into a common fund, from whence an allowance to each particular college was made, not according to its necessary expenditure, but according to the pleasure of the minister to whom the distribution was confided. Thus the design of starving the colleges, and rendering the _communes_ weary of a voluntary tax from which no benefit was derived, was in most cases easily effected; and where the inhabitants of a town, being more desirous of supporting such an establishment, supplied the deficiency of the fund by fresh subscriptions, the University interfered, to harass and disgust them by means contradictory in appearance, but tending to the same end. Being vested with authority over the Regents, it appointed and superseded them at pleasure, removing to the Lyceums those who had deserved the confidence of the neighbourhood, and supplying their place by incompetent and worthless adventurers; it forced upon the colleges professors of sciences which were not taught there, or it forbade them to pursue the same branches of education if they were teaching them with success. Very few of these establishments, and those only in the remotest provinces, escaped the effects of this insidious hostility. ♦ECCLESIASTICAL SCHOOLS.♦ The Ecclesiastical Schools had been instituted as seminaries for the priesthood by the Bishops, and were founded and supported by contributions. Some were placed in cities where they were under the Bishop’s immediate inspection, and became especial objects of his care; others were fixed in the country, that they might be removed from the corruption of great towns. The children of the poor who appeared by their talents and disposition to be fit subjects for the ministry, were educated there gratuitously; those of the wealthy for a moderate payment. The Romish clergy have always understood that where religious feeling exists, money is never wanting for religious purposes. Poor as Buonaparte had left the Gallican church, large buildings were now bought or erected for these seminaries, and furnished and supported with a liberality which manifested that in the provinces at least there was more religion than