[Footnote 6145: Taine entered in L'Ecole Normale in October 1848, first in his year, having written an essay in philosophy (in Latin) with the title: Si animus cum corpore extinguitur, quid sit Deus? Quid homo? Quid societas? Quid philosophia? (If the soul dies with the body what happens to God? Man? Society? Philosophy?) And an essay in French imagining that he was Voltaire writing to his English friend Cedeville pretending to give his impressions on England. When he had arrived on 30 October 1848 Taine wrote to Cornélis de Witt: "Here I am in the convent and prisoner for three years." (SR.)] [Footnote 6146: I note, however, that the École Normale Superior produced Taine, and it seemed to have had the same effect upon him as by boarding school and its similar regime upon me, namely of making me informed and rebellious. I have also noted that the most uninteresting and smug young people I have met have followed school systems like that of the United States where no great effort is demanded but the peer pressure helps to produce ignorant, self-satisfied students. (SR.)] [Footnote 6147: Villemain, "Souvenirs contemporaines," vol. I., 137-156. ("Une visite à l'École normale en 1812," Napoleon's own words to M. de Narbonne.) "Tacitus is a dissatisfied senator, an Auteuil grumbler, who revenges himself, pen in hand, in his cabinet. His is the spite of the aristocrat and philosopher both at once.... Marcus Aurelius is a sort of Joseph II., and, in much larger proportions, a philanthropist and sectarian in commerce with the sophists and ideologues of his time, flattering them and imitating them.... I like Diocletian better."--"... Public education lies in the future and in the duration of my work after I am gone."] [Footnote 6148: Decree of March 17, 1808, art. 110 and the following.] [Footnote 6149: Circular of Nov. 13, 1813.] [Footnote 6150: Decree of March 17, 1808, article 38.] [Footnote 6151: Pelet de la Lozere, ibid., 158.] [Footnote 6152: Id., ibid., 168. (Session of March 20, 1806.)] [Footnote 6153: Hermann Niemeyer, "Beobactungen auf einer Deportation-Reise nach Frankreich im J. 1807" (Halle, 1824), II.,353.--Fabry, "Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de l'instruction publique," III., 120. (Documents and testimony of pupils showing that religion in the lycées is only ceremonial practice.)--Id., Riancey, "Histoire de l'instruction publique," II.,378. (Reports of nine chaplains in the royal colleges in 1830 proving that the same spirit prevailed throughout the Restoration: "A boy sent to one of these establishments containing 400 pupils for the term of eight years has only eight or ten chances favoring the preservation of his faith; all the others are against him, that is to say, out of four hundred chances, three hundred and ninety risk his being a man with no religion."]