is 400,000 francs annual income on the public ledger, a little less than the donation of one single college, Louis-le-Grand, in 1789.[31134] It may even be said that it is exactly the fortune of the old college which, after being made use of in many ways, turned aside and with other mischance, becomes the patrimony of the new University.[31135] From high-school to University, the State has effected the transfer. Such is its generosity. This is especially apparent in connection with primary instruction; in 1812, for the first time, it allows 25,000 francs for this purpose, of which only 4,500 are received.[31136] Such is the final liquidation of the great collective fortunes. A settlement of accounts, an express or tacit bargain, intervenes between the State and all institutions for instruction, worship and charity. It has taken from the poor, from the young and from believers, 5 milliards of capital and 270 millions of revenue;[31137] it gives back to them, in public income and treasury interest, about 17 millions per annum. As it has the might and makes the law it has no difficulty in obtaining or in giving itself its own discharge; it is a bankrupt who, having spent his creditors money, bestows on these 6%. of their claim by way of alms. Naturally, it takes the opportunity to bring them under its strict and permanent dependence, in adding other claims to those with which the old monarchy had already burdened the corporations that administered collective fortunes. Napoleon increases the weight of these chains and screws them tighter. Not only does he take it upon himself to impose order, probity, and economy on the administrators, but, again, he appoints them, dismisses them, and prescribes or authorizes each of their acts. He puts words in their mouths; he wants to be the great bishop, the universal genius, the sole tutor and professor, in short, the dictator of opinion, the creator and director of every political, social and moral idea throughout his empire.--With what rigidity and pertinacious intent, with what variety and convergence of means, with what plenitude and certainty of execution, with what detriment and with what danger, present and to come, for corporations, for the public, for the State, for himself, we shall see presently; he himself, living and reigning, is to realize this. For his interference, pushed to extremes, is to end in encountering resistance in a body which he considers as his own creature, the Church: here, forgetting that she has roots of her own, deep down and out of his reach, he carries off the Pope, holds him captive, sends cardinals into the interior, (Page 198/504)imprisons bishops, banishes priests, and incorporates seminarians in his regiments.[31138] He decrees the closing of all small seminaries,[31139] alienates forever the Catholic clergy like the royalist nobility, precisely at the same moment and through the same absolutism, through