Rome a
canonical institution, and this the Imperial Government did not care
to have. M. Emery, moreover, took good care never to suggest such a
step. He had anything but a favourable recollection of the old system,
and very much preferred keeping his young men under his own control.
The lectures _intra muros_ thus became the regular course of teaching.
Nevertheless, as change is a thing unknown at St. Sulpice, the old
names remain what they were. The seminary has no professors; all the
members of the congregation have the uniform title of director.

The company founded by Olier retained until the Revolution its repute
for modesty and practical virtue. Its achievements in theology were
somewhat insignificant, as it had not the lofty independence of
Port-Royal. It went too far into Molinism, and did not avoid the
paltry meanness which is, so to speak, the outcome of the rigid
ideas of the orthodox and a set-off against his good qualities. The
ill-humour of Saint Simon against these pious priests is, however,
carried too far. They were, in the great ecclesiastical army, the
noncommissioned officers and drill-sergeants, and it would have been
absurd to expect from them the high breeding of general officers. The
company exercised through its numerous provincial houses a decisive
influence upon the education of the French clergy, while in Canada
it acquired a sort of religious suzerainty which harmonised very well
with the English rule--so well-disposed towards ancient rights and
custom, and which has lasted down to our own day.

The Revolution did not have any effect upon St. Sulpice. A man of cool
and resolute character, such as the company always numbered among its
members, reconstructed it upon the very same basis. M. Emery, a
very learned and moderately Gallican priest, so completely gained
Napoleon's confidence that be obtained from him the necessary
authorisations. He would have been very much surprised if he had been
told that the fact of making such a demand was a base concession to
the civil power, and a sort of impiety. Thus things recurred to their
old groove as they were before the Revolution, the door moved on its
old hinges, and as from Olier to the Revolution there had not been
any change, the seventeenth century had still a resting-place in one
corner of Paris.

St. Sulpice continued amid surroundings so different, to be what it
had always been before--moderate and respectful towards the civil
power, and