1800, Jacobin and scoundrel have become synonymous terms. Henceforth,
parents desire that their children should learn to read in the catechism
and not in the declaration of rights:[3173] as they view it, the old
manual formed polite and civilized youths and respectful sons; the
new one forms only insolent rascals and precocious, slovenly
blackguards.[3174] Consequently, the few primary schools in which the
Republic has placed its people and imposed its educational system remain
three-quarters empty; in vain does she close the doors of those in
which other masters teach with other books; fathers persist in their
repugnance and distaste; they prefer for their sons utter ignorance
to unsound instruction.[3175]--A secular establishment, created and
provided for by twenty generations of benefactors, gave gratis, or at
a much lower rate, the first crumbs of intellectual food to more
than 1,200,000 children.[3176] It was demolished; in its place, a few
improvised and wretched barracks distributed here and there a small
ration of moldy and indigestible bread. Thereupon, one long, low murmur,
a long time suppressed, breaks out and keeps on increasing, that of
parents whose children are condemned to go hungry; in any event, they
demand that their sons and daughters be no longer forced, under penalty
of fasting, to consume the patent flour of the State, that is to say
a nauseous, unsatisfactory, badly-kneaded, badly-baked paste which, on
trial, proves offensive to the palate and ruinous to the stomach.

VI. Religion

The Spirit and Ministrations of Catholicism.--How the
Revolution develops a sense of this.

Another plaint is heard, deeper and more universal, that of all souls
in which regret for their established church and forms of worship still
subsists or is revived.

In every religious system discipline and rites depend upon faith, for it
is faith alone which suggests or prescribes these; they are the outcome
and expansion of this; it attains its ends through these, and manifests
itself by them; they are the exterior of which it is the interior; thus,
let these be attacked and it is in distress; the living, palpitating
flesh suffers through the sensitive skin.--In Catholicism, this skin
is more sensitive than elsewhere, for it clings to the flesh, not alone
through ordinary adhesiveness, the effect of adaptation and custom,
but again through a special organic attachment, consisting of dogmatic
doctrine; t