Therefore, we confer upon him "in all that concerns religion,"[6311] the duty "of visiting them himself, or delegating his vicars-general to visit them," the faculty "of suggesting to the royal council of public instruction the measures which he deems necessary." At the top of the hierarchy sits a Grand-Master with the powers and title of M.de Fontanes and with an additional title, member of the cabinet and minister of public instruction, M.de Freyssinous, bishop of Hermopolis,[6312] and, in difficult cases, this bishop, placed between his Catholic conscience and the positive articles of the legal statute, "sacrifices the law" to his conscience.[6313]--This is the advantage which can be taken from the tool of public education.

After 1850, it is to be used in the same way and in the same sense; after 1796, and later after 1875, it was made to work as vigorously in the opposite direction.

Whatever the rulers may be, whether monarchists, imperialists or republicans, they are the masters who use it for their own advantage; for this reason, even when resolved not to abuse the instrument, they keep it intact; they reserve the use of it for themselves,[6314] and pretty hard blows are necessary to sever or relax the firm hold which they have on the central lever.
Except for these excesses and especially after they finish, when the government, from 1828 to 1848, ceases to be sectarian, and the normal play of the institution is no longer corrupted by political interference, the governed accept the University in block, just as their rulers maintain it: they also have motives of their own, the same as for submitting to other tools of Napoleonic centralization .-- And first of all, as a departmental and communal institution, the university institution operates wholly alone; it exacts little or no collaboration on the part of those interested; it relieves them of any effort, dispute or care, which is pleasant.

Like the local administration, which, without their help or with scarcely any, provides them with bridges, roads, canals, cleanliness, salubrity and precautions against contagious diseases, the scholastic administration, without making any demand on their indolence, puts its full service, the local and central apparatus of primary, secondary, superior and special instruction, its staff and material, furniture and buildings, masters and schedules, examinations and grades, rules and discipline, expenditure and receipts, all at its disposition.

As at the door of a table d'hote, they are told, "Come in and take a seat.