it is that they may be better adapted to their destiny."[6210] "In comprising them in the University, they become connected with the civil order of things and the danger of their independence is anticipated." Henceforth, "they no longer have a stranger or a foreigner for their chief." "The superior-general at Rome has renounced all inspection over them; it is understood that in France their superior-general will reside at Lyons."[6211] The latter, with his monks, fall into the hands of the government and come under the authority of the Grand-Master.

Such a corporation, with the head of it in one's power, is a perfect instrument, the surest, the most exact, always to be relied on and which never acts on one side of, or beyond, the limits marked out for it.
Nothing pleases Napoleon more, who, * in the civil order of things, wants to be Pope; * who builds up his State, as the Pope his Church, on old Roman tradition; * who, to govern from above, allies himself with ecclesiastical authority; * who, like Catholic authorities, requires drilled executants and regimental maneuvers, only to be found in organized and special bodies of men.[6212] The general inspectors of the University give to each rector the following instructions as a watchword "Wherever the Brethren of the Christian Schools can be found, they shall," for primary teaching, "be preferred to all others."[6213] Thus, to the three classes of subjects taught, a fourth must be added, one not mentioned by the legislator in his law, but which Napoleon admits, which the rectors and prefects recommend or authorize, and which is always inscribed in the contract made between the commune and the instructor.

The latter, whether layman or 'frere ignorantin,' engages to teach, besides "reading, writing and decimal arithmetic," "the catechism adopted by the Empire." Consequently, as the first communion (of the pupil) draws near, he is careful, for at least two years, to have his scholars learn the consecrated text by heart, and to recite this text aloud on their benches, article by article; in this way, his school becomes a branch of the Church and, hence, like the Church, a reigning instrumentality.

For, in the catechism adopted for the Empire, there is one phrase carefully thought out, full and precise in its meaning, in which Napoleon has concentrated the quintessence of his political and social doctrine and formulated the imperative belief assigned by him as the object of education.

The seven or eight hundred thousand children of the lower schools recite this potent phrase to the teacher before reciting it to the priest: "We especially owe to Napoleon I., our Emperor, love, respect, obedience, fidelity, military service, and the dues (tributs) prescribed for the preservation and defense of the Empire and the throne....