The Modern Regime Volume I Part 22

[Footnote 31116: In 1790 and 1791 a number of communes had made offers for national property with a view to re-sell it afterwards, and much of this, remaining unsold, was on their hands.]

[Footnote 31117: Articles organiques, 26. "The bishops will make no ordination before submitting the number of persons to the government for its acceptance."]

[Footnote 31118: "Archives de Gren.o.ble." (Doc.u.ments communicated by Mdlle. de Franclieu.) Letter of the bishop, Monseigneur Claude Simon, to the Minister of Worship, April 18, 1809. "For seven years that I have been bishop of Gren.o.ble, I have ordained thus far only eight priests; during this period I have lost at least one hundred and fifty. The survivors threaten me with a more rapid gap; either they are infirm, bent with the weight of years, or wearied or overworked. It is therefore urgent that I be authorized to confer sacred orders on those who are old enough and have the necessary instruction. Meanwhile, you are limited to asking authorization for the first eight on the aforesaid list, of whom the youngest is twenty-four.... I beg Your Excellency to present the others on this list for the authorization of His Imperial Majesty."--Ibid., October 6, 1811. "I have only one deacon and one subdeacon, whilst I am losing three or four priests monthly."]

[Footnote 31119: Articles organiques, 68, 69. "The pensions enjoyed by the cures by virtue of the laws of the const.i.tuent a.s.sembly shall be deducted from their salary. The vicars and a.s.sistants shall be taken from the pensioned ecclesiastics according to the laws of the const.i.tuent a.s.sembly. The amount of these pensions and the product of oblations shall const.i.tute their salary."]

[Footnote 31120: Laws of Vendemiaire 16, year V, and Ventose 20, year V..]

[Footnote 31121: Decree of Nov. 6, 1800.]

[Footnote 31122: Decisions of February 23, 1801, and June 26, 1801.

(We find, through subsequent decisions, that these recoveries were frequently effected.)]

[Footnote 31123: Law of Frimaire 7, year V (imposing one decime per franc above the cost of a ticket in every theatre for the benefit of the poor not in the asylums).--Also the decree of Dec. 9, 1809.--Decisions of Vendemiaire 27, year VII, and the restoration of the Paris octroi, "considering that the distress of the civil asylums and the interruption of succor at domiciles admit of no further delay."--Also the law of Frimaire 19, year VIII, with the addition of 2 decimes per franc to the octroi duties, established for the support of the asylums of the commune of Paris.--Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "Traite de la science des finances," I., 685. Many towns follow this example: "Two years had scarcely pa.s.sed when there were 293 Octrois in France."]

[Footnote 31124: Law of Messidor 25, year V.--Alexis Chevalier, ibid., p. 185. (Decisions of Thermidor 20, year XI, and Germinal 4, year XIII.)--Law of Dec.. 11, 1808 (article 1.)]

[Footnote 31125: Albert Duruy, "l'Instruction publique et la Revolution," p.480 et seq. ("Proces-verbaux des conseils-generaux de l'an IX;" among others, the pet.i.tions from Gironde, Ile-et-Vilaine, Maine-et-Loire, Puy.de-Dome, Haute-Saone, Haute Vienne, la Manche, Lot-et-Garonne, Sarthe, Aisne, Aude, Cote-d'Or, Pas-de-Calais, Ba.s.sePyrenees, Pyrenees-Orienta1es, and Lot.)]

[Footnote 31126: Alexis Chevalier, ibid., p. 182. (According to statistical returns of the parent establishment, rue Oudinot.--These figures are probably too low.)]

[Footnote 31127: "Recueil des lois et reglemens sur l'enseignement superieur," by A. de Beauchamp, I., 65. (Report by Fourcroy, April 20, 1802.) "Old schools, since the suppression of upper schools and universities, have taken a new extension, and a pretty large number of private inst.i.tutions have been formed for the literary education of the young."]

[Footnote 31128: Ibid., 65 and 71. (Report by Fourcroy.) "As to the primary schools, the zeal of the munic.i.p.alities must be aroused, the emulation of the functionaries excited, and charitable tendencies revived, so natural to the French heart and which will so promptly spring up when the religious respect of the government for local endowments becomes known."]

[Footnote 31129: Ibid., p. 81. (Decree of May 1st, 1802, t.i.tles 2 and 9.--Decree of Sept. 17, 1808, article 23.)]

[Footnote 31130: "Histoire du college des Bons-Enfans de l'universite de Reims," by abbe Cauly, p. 649.--The lycee of Reims, decreed May 6, 1802, was not opened until the 24th of September, 1803. The town was to furnish accommodations for 150 pupils. It spent nearly 200,000 francs to put buildings in order.... This sum was provided, on the one hand, by a voluntary subscription which realized 45,000 francs and, on the other hand, by an additional tax.]

[Footnote 31131: Law of May 1, 1802, articles 32, 33, and 34.--Guizot, "Essai sur l'instruction publique, I., 59. Bonaparte maintained and brought up in the lycees, at his own expense and for his own advantage, about 3000 children... commonly selected from the sons of soldiers or from poor families."--Fabry, "Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de l'instruction publique," III., 802. "Children of soldiers whose wives lived in Paris, the sons of office-holders who were prevented by luxury from bringing up their families--such were the scholarships of Paris."--"In the provinces, the employees in the tax--and post-offices, with other nomadic functionaries--such were the communal scholarships."--Lunet, "Histoire du college de Rodez," 219, 224. Out of 150 scholarships, 87 are filled, on the average.]

[Footnote 31132: "Recueil," etc., by A. de Beauchamp, I, 171, 187, 192.

(Law of September 17, 1808, article 27, and decision of April 7, 1809.)]

[Footnote 31133: Ibid. Masters of private schools and heads of inst.i.tutions must pay additionally every year one-quarter of the sums above fixed. (Law of Sept. 17, 1808, article 25. Law of March 17, 1808, t.i.tle 17.--Law of February 17, 1809.)]

[Footnote 31134: Ibid., I., 189. (Decree of March 24, 1808, on the endowment of the University.)]

[Footnote 31135: Emond, "Histoire du college Louis-le-Grand,"

p.238. (This college, previous to 1789, enjoyed an income of 450,000 livres.)--Guizot, ibid., I., 62.--This college was maintained during the revolution under the name of the "Prytanee Francais" and received in 1800 the property of the University of Louvain. Many of its pupils enlisted in 1792, and were promised that their scholarships should be retained for them on their return; hence the military spirit of the "Prytanee."--By virtue of a decree, March 5, 1806, a perpetual income of 400,000 francs was transferred to the Prytanee de Saint-Cyr. It is this income which, by the decree of March 24, 1808, becomes the endowment of the imperial University. Henceforth, the expenses of the Prytanee de Saint-Cyr are a.s.signed to the war department.]

[Footnote 31136: Alexis Chevalier, Ibid., p.265. Allocution to the "Ignorantin" brethren.]

[Footnote 31137: "The Ancient Regime," pp.13-15. (Laff. I. pp. 17 and 18.)--"The Revolution," III., p. 54. (Laff. II. pp. 48-49)--Alexis Chevalier, "Les Freres des ecoles chretiennes," p.341. "Before the revolution, the revenues of public instruction exceeded 30 millions."--Peuchet, "Statistique elementaire de la France" (published in 1805), p.256. Revenue of the asylums and hospitals in the time of Necker, 40 millions, of which 23 are the annual income from real-estate and 17 provided by personal property, contracts, the public funds, and a portion from octrois, etc.]

[Footnote 31138: D'Haussonville, "l'eglise romaine et le premier Empire," vol. IV. et V., pa.s.sim--Ibid., III., 370, 375. (13 Italian cardinals and 19 bishops of the Roman states are transported and a.s.signed places in France, as well as many of their grand-vicars and chanoines; about the same date over 200 Italian priests are banished to Corsica).--V., 181. (July 12, 1811, the bishops of Troyes, Tournay and Ghent are sent to (the fortress-prison of) Vincennes.)--V., 286. (236 pupils in the Ghent seminary are enrolled in an artillery brigade and sent off to Wesel, where about fifty of them die in the hospital.)--"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc) Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. (Numbers of Belgian priests confined in the castles of Ham, Bouillon and Pierre-Chatel were set free after the Restoration.)]

[Footnote 31139: Decree of November 15, 1811, art. 28, 29, and 30.

(Owing to M. de Fontanes, the small seminaries were not all closed, many of them, 41, still existing in 1815.)]

[Footnote 31140: Collection of laws and decrees, pa.s.sim, after 1802.]

[Footnote 31141: Doc.u.ments furnished by M. Alexis Chevalier, former director of public charities. The total amount of legacies and bequests is as follows: 1st Asylums and hospitals, from January 1, 1800, to December 31, 1845, 72,593,360 francs; from January 1st, 1846, to December 31, 1855, 37,107,812; from January 1st, 1856, to December 31, 1877, 121,197,774. in all, 230,898,346 francs.--2d. Charity bureaux.

From January 1st, 1800, to December 31, 1845, 49,911,090; from January 1st, 1846, to December 31, 1873, 115,629,925; from January 1st 1874, to December 31, 1877, 19,261,065. In all, 184,802,080 francs.--Sum total, 415,701,026 francs.]

[Footnote 31142: According to the statements of M. de Watteville and M.

de Gasparin.]

[Footnote 31143: Report by Fourcroy, annexed to the exposition of the empire and presented to the Corps Legislatif, March 5, 1806.]

[Footnote 31144: Coup d'oeil general sur l'education et l'instruction publique en France," by Ba.s.set, censor of studies at Charlemagne college (1816),--p. 21.]

[Footnote 31145: "Statistique de l'enseignement primaire," II., CCIV.

(From 1786 to 1789, 47 out of 100 married men and 26 married women out of a hundred signed their marriage contract. From 1816 to 1820, the figures show 54 husbands and 34 wives.)--Morris Birbeck, "Notes of a Journey through France in July, August and September 1814." p.3 (London, 1815). "I am told that all the children of the laboring cla.s.ses learn to read, and are generally instructed by their parents."]

[Footnote 31146: Madame de Remusat, I., 243. (Journey in the north of France and in Belgium with the First Consul, 1803.) "On journeys of this kind he was in the habit, after obtaining information about the public buildings a town needed, to order them as he pa.s.sed along, and, for this munificence, he bore away the blessings of the people."--Some time after this a letter came from the minister of the interior: "In conformity with the favor extended to you by the First Consul (later, emperor) you are required, citizen mayor, to order the construction of this or that building, taking care to charge the expenses on the funds of your commune," and which the prefect of the department obliges him to do, even when available funds are exhausted or otherwise applied.]

[Footnote 31147: Thiers, VIII., 117 (August 1807) and 124. 13,400 leagues of highways were constructed or repaired; 10 ca.n.a.ls were dug or continued, at the expense of the public treasury; 32 departments contribute to the expense of these through the extra centimes tax, which is imposed on them. The State and the department, on the average, contribute each one-half.--Among the material evils caused by the Revolution, the most striking and the most seriously felt was the abandonment and running down of roads which had become impracticable, also the still more formidable degeneracy of the dikes and barriers against rivers and the sea. (Cf. in Rocquain, "etat de la France au 18 Brumaire," the reports of Francais de Nantes, Fourcroy, Barbee-Marbois, etc.)--The Directory had imagined barrriers with toll-gates on each road to provide expenses, which brought in scarcely 16 millions to offset 30 and 35 millions of expenditure. Napoleon subst.i.tutes for these tolls the product of the salt-tax. (Decree of April 24, 1806, art. 59.)]

[Footnote 31148: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc) Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. "Scarcely two or three highways remained in decent order. ... Navigation on the rivers and ca.n.a.ls became impossible Public buildings and monuments were everywhere falling to ruin.... If the rapidity of destruction was prodigious, that of restoration was no less so."]

CHAPTER II. TAXATION AND CONSCRIPTION.

I. Distributive Justice in Allotment of Burdens and Benefits.

Requirements previous to the Revolution.--Lack of distributive justice.--Wrongs committed in the allotment of social sacrifices and benefits.--Under the ancient Regime.

--During the Revolution.--Napoleon's personal and public motives in the application of distributive justice.--The circ.u.mstances favorable to him.--His principle of apportionment.--He exacts proportion in what he grants.

The other group of needs, dating from long before 1789, involve wants which have survived the Revolution, because the Revolution has not satisfied these. The first, the most tenacious, the most profound, the most inveterate, the most frustrated of all is the desire for distributive justice.--In political society, as in every other society, there are burdens and benefits to be allotted. When the apportionment of these is unbiased, it takes place according to a very simple, self-evident principle:

For each individual the costs must be in proportion to the benefits and the benefits to the costs, so that, for each one, the final expense and the final receipt may exactly compensate each other, the larger or smaller share of expense being always equal to the larger or smaller share of profits.

Now, in France, this proportion had been wanting for many centuries; it had even given way to the inverse proportion. If, towards the middle of the eighteenth century, two sum-totals of the budget, material and moral, had been calculated, a.s.sets on one side and liabilities on the other:

On the one hand the sum of the apportionments exacted by the State, taxes in ready money, enforced labor, military service, civil subordination, every species of obedience and subjection, in short, every sacrifice of leisure, comfort and self-esteem.

On the other hand the sum of dividends distributed by the State of whatever kind or shape, security for persons and property, use and convenience of roads, delegations of public authority land liens on the public treasury, dignities, ranks, grades, honors, lucrative salaries, sinecures, pensions, and the like, that is to say, every gratification belonging to leisure, comfort, or pride--one might have concluded that the more a man contributed to the receipts the less would his dividend be, and the greater his dividend the less would he furnish to the general contribution.

Consequently, every social or local group consisted of two other groups: a majority which suffered for the benefit of the minority, and a minority which benefited at the expense of the majority, to such an extent that the privations of the greatest number defrayed the luxury of the small number. This was the case in all compartments as on every story, owing to the mult.i.tude, enormity and diversity of honorific or useful privileges, owing to the legal prerogatives and effective preferences by which the court n.o.bles benefited at the expense of the provincial n.o.bility,

* the n.o.blesse at the expense of plebeians,