Paris as It Was and as It Is Part 47

Ten Schools of Jurisprudence. These useful inst.i.tutions, which have been abolished during the last ten years, are, by a new organization, to resume the importance that they had lost long before the revolution. The pupils are to be examined in a manner more certain for determining their capacity, and better calculated for securing the degree of confidence to be reposed in those men to whose knowledge and integrity individuals are sometimes forced to intrust their character and fortune.

Three new Schools of Medicine, in addition to the three at present in being. These also are to be newly organized in the most perfect manner.

The mathematical and physical sciences have made too great a progress in France, their application to the useful arts, to the public service, and to the general prosperity, has been too direct, says FOURCROY, for it not to be necessary to diffuse the taste for them, and to open new asylums where the advantages resulting from them may be extended, and their progress promoted. There are therefore to be four new _Special_ Schools of Natural History, Physics, and Chymistry, and also a _Special_ School devoted to transcendent Mathematics.

The mechanical and chymical arts, so long taught in several universities in Germany under the name of _technology_, are to have two _Special_ Schools, placed in the cities most rich in industry and manufactures. These schools, generally wished for, are intended to contribute to the national prosperity by the new methods which they will make known, the new instruments and processes which they will bring into use, the good models of machines which they will introduce, in a word, by every means that mechanics and chymistry can furnish to the arts.

A School of Public Economy, enlightened by Geography and History, is to be opened for those who may be desirous to investigate the principles of governments, and the art of ascertaining their respective interests. In this school it is proposed to unite such an a.s.semblage of knowledge as has not yet existed in France.

To the three princ.i.p.al schools of the arts dependent on design, which are at present open, is to be added a fourth, become necessary since those arts bring back to France the pure taste of the beautiful forms, of which Greece has left such perfect models.

In each of the observatories now in use is to be a professor of astronomy, and the art of navigation is expected to derive new succour from these schools, most of which are placed in the princ.i.p.al sea-ports. A knowledge of the heavens and the study of the movements of the celestial bodies, which every year receives very remarkable augmentations from the united efforts of the most renowned geometricians and the most indefatigable observers, may have a great influence on the progress of civilization. On which account the French government is extremely eager to promote the science of astronomy.

The language of neighbouring nations, with whom the French have such frequent intercourse, is to be taught in several Lyceums, as being a useful introduction to commerce.

The art of war, of which modern times have given such great examples and such brilliant lessons, is to have its _special_ school, and this school, on the plan which it is intended to be established by receiving as soldiers youths from the Lyceums, will form for the French armies officers equally skilful in theory as in practice.

This new Military School must not be confounded with the old _ecole militaire_. Independently of its not being destined for a particular cla.s.s, which no longer exists in this country, the mode of instruction to be introduced there will render it totally different from the establishment which bore the same name.

It is to be composed of five hundred pupils, forming a battalion, and who are to be accustomed to military duty and discipline; it is to have at least ten professors, charged to teach all the theoretical, practical, and administrative parts of the art of war, as well as the history of wars and of great captains.

Of the five hundred pupils of the Special Military School, two hundred are to be taken from among the national pupils of the Lyceums, in proportion to their number in each of those schools, and three hundred from among the boarders and day-scholars, according to the examination which they must undergo at the end of their studies.

Every year one hundred of the former are to be admitted, and two hundred of the latter. They are to be maintained two years in the Special Military School, at the expense of the Republic. These two years are to be considered as part of their military service.

According to the report made of the behaviour and talents of the pupils of the Military School, the government is to provide them with appointments in the army.

NATIONAL PUPILS.

There are to be maintained at the expense of the Republic six thousand four hundred pupils, as boarders in the Lyceums and Special Schools.

Out of these six thousand four hundred boarders, two thousand four hundred are to be chosen by the government from among the sons of officers and public functionaries of the judicial, administrative, or munic.i.p.al order, who shall have served the Republic with fidelity, and for ten years only from among the children of citizens belonging to the departments united to France, although they have neither been military men nor public functionaries.

These two thousand four hundred pupils are to be at least nine years of age, and able to read and write.

The other four thousand are to be taken from double the number of pupils of the Secondary Schools, who, according to an examination where their talents are put in compet.i.tion, are to be presented to the government.

The pupils, maintained in the Lyceums, are not to remain there more than six years at the expense of the nation. At the end of their studies, they are to undergo an examination, after which a fifth of them are to be placed in the different Special Schools according to their disposition, in order to be maintained there from two to four years at the expense of the Republic.

The annual cost of all these establishments is estimated at near eight millions of francs, (_circa_ 336,000 sterling) which exceeds by at least two millions the amount of the charges of the public instruction for the few preceding years; but this augmentation, which will only take place by degrees, and at soonest in eighteen months, appears trifling, compared to the advantages likely to result from the new system.

Whenever this plan is carried into execution, what hopes may not France conceive from the youth of the rising generation, who, chosen from among those inclined to study, will, in all probability, rise to every degree of fame! The surest pledge of the success of the measure seems to consist in the spirit of emulation which is to be maintained, not only among the pupils, but even among the professors in the different schools; for emulation, in the career of literature, arts and sciences, leads to fame, and never fails to turn to the benefit of society; whereas jealousy, in the road of ambition and fortune, produces nothing but hatred and discord.

"Envy, to which th' ign.o.ble mind's a slave, Is emulation in the learn'd and brave."

So much for the plan.[2] In your last letter, you desire that I will afford you some means of appreciating the essential difference between the old system of education pursued in France, and the basis on which public instruction is now on the point of being reorganised and established. You must be sensible that the comparison of the two modes, were I to enter deeply into the question, would far exceed the limits of a letter. But, though I have already extended this to a certain length, I can, in a few more lines, enable you to compare and judge, by informing you, from the best authority, what has been the spirit which has dictated the new organization.

There are very few men who know how to confine themselves within just bounds. Some yield to the mania of innovation, and imagine that they create only because they destroy and change. Others bend under the yoke of old habits. Some, solely because they have remained strangers to the sciences, would wish that youth should be employed only in the study of languages and literature. Others who, no doubt, forget that every learned man, who aims at a solid reputation, ought to sacrifice to the Muses, before he penetrates into the sanctuary of science, would wish education to be confined to the study of the exact sciences, and that youth should be occupied on things, before they are acquainted with words.

For the sole reason that the old system of instruction bore too exclusively on the study of the learned languages, it was to be feared that the new one, through a contrary excess, would proscribe the Greek and Latin. The study of these two languages, as FOURCROY has observed to me, is not merely useful to those who wish to acquire a thorough knowledge of the French, which has borrowed from them no small number of words, but it is only from the perusal of the great writers of antiquity, on whom the best among the moderns have formed themselves, that we can imbibe the sentiment of the beautiful, the taste, and the rect.i.tude of mind equally necessary, whether we feel ourselves attracted towards eloquence or poetry, or raise ourselves to the highest conceptions of the physical or mathematical sciences.

At no time can the instruction given to a youth be otherwise considered than as a preparatory mean, whose object is to antic.i.p.ate his taste and disposition, and enable him to enter with more firmness into the career which he is intended to follow.

From an attentive perusal of the plan, of which I have traced you the leading features, you will be convinced that the study of the sciences will gain by the new system, without that of literature being in danger of losing. The number of professors is increased, and yet the period of education is not prolonged. A pupil will always be at liberty to apply himself more intensely to the branch to which he is impelled by his particular inclination. He may confine himself to one course of lectures, or attend to several, according to his intellectual means. He will not be compelled to stop in his career, merely because the pupils of his cla.s.s do not advance. In short, neither limits nor check have been put to the progress that may be made by talent.

I here give you only a princ.i.p.al idea, but the application of it, improved by your sagacity and knowledge, will be sufficient to answer all the objections which may be started against the new plan of instruction, and which, when carefully investigated, may be reduced to a single one; namely, that literature is sacrificed to the sciences.

[Footnote 1: Counsellor of State, now charged with the direction and superintendance of public instruction.]

[Footnote 2: The new organization of public instruction was decreed by the government on the 11th of Floreal, year X.]

LETTER LII.

_Paris, January 18, 1802._

Of all the private lodgings in Paris, none certainly can be more convenient for the residence of a single man than those of

MILLINERS.

I have already said that such is the profession of my landlady.

Whenever I am disposed for a little lively chitchat, I have only to step to the next door but one into her _magazin de modes_, where, like a favourite courtier, under the old _regime_, I have both _les grandes et les pet.i.tes entrees_, or, in plain English, I may either introduce myself by the public front entrance, or slip in by the private back-door.

Here, twenty damsels are employed in making up head-dresses which are hourly produced and varied by fashion. Closely confined to the counter, with a needle in their hand, they are continually throwing their eyes towards the street. Not a pa.s.senger escapes their notice.

The place the nearest to the window is in the greatest request, as being most favourable for catching the transient homages of the crowds of men continually pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing. It is generally occupied by the beauty of the _magazin_ or warehouse; for it would be resented as an almost unpardonable offence to term this emporium of taste a _boutique_ or shop.

Before each of them is a block, on which they form and adjust the gallant trophy destined to heighten the loveliness of some ambitious fair who has set her heart on surpa.s.sing all her rivals at an approaching ball. Montesquieu observes, in his Persian letters, that "if a lady has taken it into her head to appear at an a.s.sembly in a particular dress, from that moment fifty persons of the working cla.s.s must no longer sleep, or have time to eat and drink. She commands, and is obeyed more expeditiously than the king of Persia, because interest has greater sway than the most powerful monarch on earth."

In the morning, some of these damsels wait on the ladies with bandboxes of millinery. Obliged by their profession to adorn the heads of other women, they must stifle the secret jealousy of their s.e.x, and contribute to set off the person of those who not unfrequently treat them with hauteur. However, they are now and then amply revenged: sometimes the proud rich lady is eclipsed by the humble little milliner. The unadorned beauty of the latter destroys the made up charms of the coquette: 'tis the triumph of nature over art.

If, perchance, the lover drops in, fatal consequences ensue. His belle cannot but lose by the comparison: her complexion appears still more artificial beside the natural bloom of the youthful _marchande_.

In a word, the silent admirer all at once becomes faithless.

Many a young Parisian milliner has made a jump from behind the counter into a fashionable carriage, even into that of an English peer. Strange revolution of fortune! In the course of a few days, she returns to the same shop to make purchases, holding high her head; and exulting in her success. Her former mistress, sacrificing her rage to her interest, a.s.sumes a forced complaisance; while her once-dear companions are ready to burst with envy.

Millinery here const.i.tutes a very extensive branch of trade. Nothing short of the creative genius of the French could contrive to give, again and again, a new form to things the most common. In vain do females of other countries attempt to vie with them; in articles of tasteful fancy they still remain unrivaled.

From Paris, these studious mistresses of invention give laws to the polished world. After pa.s.sing to London, Berlin, Hamburg, and Vienna, their models of fashion are disseminated all over Europe. These models alike travel to the banks of the Neva and the sh.o.r.es of the Propontis. At Constantinople, they find their way into the seraglio of the Grand Signior; while, at Petersburg, they are servilely copied to grace the Empress of Russia. Thus, the fold given to a piece of muslin or velvet, the form impressed on a ribband, by the hand of an ingenious French milliner, is repeated among all nations.

A fashion here does not last a week, before it is succeeded by another novelty; for a French woman of _bon ton_, instead of wearing what is commonly worn by others, always aims at appearing in something new. It is unfortunately too true, that the changeableness of taste and inconstancy of fashion in France furnish an aliment to the luxury of other countries; but the principle of this communication is in the luxury of this gay and volatile people.

You reproach me with being silent respecting the _bals masques_ or masquerades, mentioned in my enumeration of the amus.e.m.e.nts of Paris.

The fact is that a description of them will scarcely furnish matter for a few lines, still less a subject for a letter. However, in compliance with custom, I have been more than once to the

BAL DE L'OPeRA.

This is a masquerade frequently given in the winter, at the theatre of the grand French opera, where the pit is covered over, as that is of our opera-house in the Haymarket. From the powerful draught of air, which, coming from behind the scenes, may well be termed _vent de coulisse_, the room is as cold as the season.