In his opinion, mind had its place in the social state, and should be everywhere regulated as a class of that institute which he had reconstituted and completed. He had already laid the foundations of a great university corporation, which he was soon to establish, and which has since, in spite of some defects, rendered such important services to the national education and instruction. In the session of 1806, a project of law, drawn up by M. Fourcroy, Director of Public Instruction, had made the fundamental principles known. By the side of the clerical body, to whom Napoleon would not confide the public education, he had imagined the idea of a lay corporation, which should not be subject to permanent vows, while at the same time imbued with that _esprit de corps_ which he had come to look on as one of the great moral forces of society. Under the name of the Imperial University, a new body of teachers was to be entrusted with the public education throughout the empire; the members of this body of teachers were to undertake civil, special, and temporary obligations. The professional education of the men destined to this career, their examinations, their incorporation in the university, the government of this body, confided to a superior council, composed of men illustrious by their talents; all this vast and fertile scheme, due in a great measure to the aid of Fontanes, was afterwards to be developed in the midst of the storms which already commenced to gather around France. Napoleon had long conceived the project, but deferred the details to another time, waiting until he had created the nursery which should furnish France with learned men, whose duty was to educate the rising generation. The all-powerful conqueror, in the midst of his Polish campaign, and in his winter-quarters of Finkestein, prepared a minute on the establishment of Écouen, which had been recently founded for the education of poor girls belonging to members of the Legion of Honor. I wish to quote this document, which, though blunt and insolent, shows much good sense, in order to show how this infinitely active and powerful mind pursued at once different enterprises and thoughts, stamping on all his works the seal of his character and his personal will.