he same town or place where there
is a lycee, shall have as many boarders as it can take." This complement
shall be 300 boarders per lycee; there are to be "80 lycees in full
operation "during the year 1812, and 100 in the course of the year 1813,
so that, at this last date, the total of the complement demanded,
without counting that of the colleges, amounts to 30,000
boarding-scholars. Such is the enormous levy of the State on the crop of
boarding-school pupils. It evidently seizes the entire crop in advance;
private establishments, after it, can only glean, and through tolerance.
In reality, the decree forbids them to receive boarding-scholars;
henceforth, the University will have the monopoly of them.

The proceedings against the small seminaries, more energetic
competitors, are still more vigorous. "There shall be but one secondary
ecclesiastical school in each department; the Grand-Master will
designate those that are to be maintained; the others are to be closed.
None of them shall be in the country. All those not situated in a
town provided with a lycee or with a college shall be closed. All
the buildings and furniture belonging to the ecclesiastic schools
not retained shall be seized and confiscated for the benefit of the
University. "In all places where ecclesiastical schools exist, the
pupils of these schools shall be taken to the lycee or college and join
its classes." Finally, "all these schools shall be under the control of
the University; they must be organized only by her; their prospectus and
their regulations must be drawn up by the council of the University at
the suggestion of the Grand Master. The teaching must be done only by
members of the University at the disposition of the Grand Master." In
like manner, in the lay schools, at Sainte-Barbe for example,[6120]
every professor, private tutor, or even common superintendent, must
be provided with a special authorization by the University. Staff and
discipline, the spirit and matter of the teaching, every detail of study
and recreation,[6121] all are imposed, conducted and restrained in these
so-called free establishments; whatever they may be, ecclesiastic or
secular, not only does the University surround and hamper them, but
again it absorbs and assimilates them; it does not even leave them
any external distinctive appearance. It is true that, in the small
seminaries, the exercises begin at the ringing of a bell, and the pupils
wear an ecclesiastic d