Neither parents, nor masters nor the young cared anything about it; outside of the system in which they live they imagine nothing; they are accustomed to it the same as to the house in which they dwell.

They may grumble sometimes at the arrangement of the rooms, the low stories and narrow staircases, against bad lighting, ventilation and want of cleanliness, against the exactions of the proprietor and concierge; but, as for transforming the building, arranging it otherwise, reconstructing it in whole or in part, they never think of it.

For, in the first place, they have no plan; and next, the house is too large and its parts too well united; through its mass and size it maintains itself and would still remain indefinitely if, all at once, in 1848, an unforeseen earthquake had not made breaches in its walls.
II.

Educational monopoly of Church and State.
Law of 1850 and freedom of instruction .-- Its apparent object and real effects .-- Alliance of Church and State .-- The real monopoly .-- Ecclesiastical control of the University until 1859 .-- Gradual rupture of the Alliance .-- The University again becomes secular .-- Lay and clerical interests.
-- Separation and satisfaction of both interests down to 1876.
-- Peculiarity of this system .-- State motives for taking the upper hand .-- Parents, in fact, have no choice between two monopolies .-- Original and forced decline of private institutions .-- Their ruin complete after 1850 owing to the too-powerful and double competition of Church and State.
-- The Church and the State sole surviving educators.
-- Interested and doctrinal direction of the two educational systems .-- Increasing divergence in both directions .-- Their effect on youth.
The day after the 24th of February 1848,[6328] M.Cousin, meeting M.
de Remusat on the quay Voltaire, raised his arms towards heaven and exclaimed: "Let us hurry and fall on our knees in front of the bishops--they alone can save us now!" While M.Thiers, with equal vivacity, in the parliamentary committee exclaimed: "Cousin, Cousin, do you comprehend the lesson we have received?
Abbe Dupanloup is right."[6329] Hence the new law.[6330] M.
Beugnot, who presented it, clearly explains its aims and object: the Government "must assemble the moral forces of the country and unite them with each other to combat with and overthrow the common enemy," the anti-social party, "which, victorious, would have no mercy on anybody," neither on the University nor on the Church.

Consequently, the University abandons its monopoly: the State is no longer the sole purveyor of public instruction; private schools and associations may teach as they please.