Yet, even as First Consul, he exerted an influence that began to banish the customs and traditions of the Revolution, except in the single sphere of material interests; and he satisfied the peasants' love of land and money in order that he might the more securely triumph over revolutionary ideals and draw France insensibly back to the age of Louis XIV.
While the legislator must always keep in reserve punishment as the _ultima ratio_ for the lawless, he will turn by preference to education as a more potent moralizing agency; and certainly education urgently needed Bonaparte's attention.

The work of carrying into practice the grand educational aims of Condorcet and his coadjutors in the French Convention was enough to tax the energies of a Hercules.
Those ardent reformers did little more than clear the ground for future action: they abolished the old monastic and clerical training, and declared for a generous system of national education in primary, secondary, and advanced schools.

But amid strifes and bankruptcy their aims remained unfulfilled.

In 1799 there were only twenty-four elementary schools open in Paris, with a total attendance of less than 1,000 pupils; and in rural districts matters were equally bad.

Indeed, Lucien Bonaparte asserted that scarcely any education was to be found in France.