XXVII
THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE
The decay of letters and philosophy during the progress of the French Revolution placed the French under the necessity of establishing some measures to restore the cultivation of science and literature. Thus the National Institute was eventually formed. The old Academies had been completely destroyed, their members banished, murdered, or dispersed.
The National Institute is designed to remedy this evil by once more collecting together the genius, talents and industry of France, and it belongs to the whole Republic and is fixed at Paris. It is composed of one hundred and forty-four members resident in the capital, and 144 Associates, taken from different parts of the Republic, together with 24 learned foreigners. Every preference in this arrangement is manifestly given to Paris, at the expense of the Departments.
The Departments, containing a majority of 30 to 1 compared with the metropolis, are never expected to produce more great men collectively than the latter. This is absurd, for every one knows that under the old Monarchy there were men scattered over the provinces often equal and in many instances far superior to the members of the Parisian Academies.
Montesquieu[1] was a member of the Academy of Bordeaux in 1716, and it was not till the year 1728 that he was admitted into the Académie Française. Indeed, an admittance into that famous society was often no evidence of supereminent merit. Genius had to contest against cabal, intrigue and Court favour; so that the literati of Europe looked for great and estimable men in other Academies of France, such as Aix, Marseilles, Lyons, Bordeaux, &c.
The pre-eminence thus accorded to the Parisian savans, who are in general a gang of the vilest ruffians in the world, is a marked insult to the rest of the Republic, and proves that to rule France it is only necessary to be master at Paris. For the sake of this city, France, as well as foreign countries, has been laid under contribution and pillaged of whatever transportable monuments of art and genius they possessed. Had it been possible, the triumphal arch at Orange, the bridge of Gard, the amphitheatre at Nismes would have been removed here to gratify the fancy of the Parisian rabble of philosophers and legislators.
The law by which the learned men of a single city were placed on a level with those who people the whole of a vast country was made by the very men who afterwards became self-elected members of this miscalled National Institute. It is no trivial matter to be one of the 144 resident in Paris. It leads to fame and fortune, to places and appointments, and it is the highest step on the ladder of philosophical ambition.
To return to the laws of the Institute, it is divided into three classes:
First Class.—Physical and Mathematical Sciences.
(1) Mathematics, (2) mechanical arts, (3) astronomy, (4) experimental physics, (5) chemistry, (6) natural history, (7) botany, (8) anatomy and zoology, (9) medicine and surgery, (10) rural economy and veterinary art.
Second Class.—Moral and Political Sciences.
(1) Analysis of sensations and ideas, (2) morals or moral philosophy, (3) social science and legislation, (4) political economy, (5) history, (6) geography.
It will be observed that in this class there is no section for despised theology, which surely should have a foremost place therein.
Third Class.—Literature and the Fine Arts.
(1) Grammar, (2) ancient languages, (3) poetry, (4) antiquities and monuments, (5) painting, (6) sculpture, (7) architecture, (8) music and declamation.
When the National Institute was about to be established a law was enacted (3rd Brumaire, year 4) by which the Directory were authorised to provide salaries for each member, and the five members of the Executive Directory were empowered to nominate the first 48 members, who thus elected had power to choose the remaining 144 Associates.
In nominating the first 48, the Directors first elected each other, then their friends, and those friends nominated other friends in Paris and the Departments.
Every class of the Institute assembles twice in each decade; the assemblies are private, but each member is allowed to introduce a visitor.
The secretaries of each class assemble once a year to prepare a report of its labours, which is presented to the Institute, and whose president then writes to the Minister of the Interior to know when it shall please his consular majesty to give admission to his sacred person in order that they may present it.
When that gala day arrives, the members of the Institute appear with clean shirts, dressed in their grand uniform, and neatly shaved. The First Consul receives them, habited in all his paraphernalia, and as gorgeously attired as any Emperor or King in Europe. Every member of the Institute receives 1600 livres (£60 sterling) per annum. Every member has a silver medal with the head of Minerva on one side and his name on the other, which serves as his passport into every place in which the Institute is concerned. The First Consul, who is so fond of stage effect that he will not allow an assembly of grave philosophers to think and act without a uniform, was graciously pleased to command one for the members of the Institute. The State dress consists of a black satin coat, waistcoat, and breeches, embroidered throughout with branches of olive in deep green silk, not à la Française.
The undress costume is similar, but only embroidered at the collar and cuffs. This regulation was signed and countersigned by the First Consul and the Minister of the Interior.
On the 5th Frimaire, year 10, the Institute decreed that on the death of a member the president, the senior of the two secretaries of each class, as well as the members of the section to which the deceased belonged, were, unless prevented by some unavoidable cause, to assist at his funeral. The procession departs from the National Palace of the Louvre at noon precisely, in order that the moment it arrives at the late residence of the deceased the funeral ceremony may immediately be despatched.
Formerly a hole was dug in the earth and the philosopher’s carcase quickly deposited therein, but since it has become the fashion to be a Christian the old service for the dead is to be revived. The Conservatory of Music are to execute a solemn dirge, and black crape is to be worn upon the left arm. An historical memoir of the deceased is to be made in the course of the year by the secretaries and read at a public sitting of the Institute, when the family of the dead member are to be seated in a distinguished place. The precision with which all these ceremonies are minutely marked out leaves room for regret that it has not been mentioned at what signal from the president the assembly shall begin to cry.
I ought, perhaps, to give a list of the members of this Institute, with details of their characters previous to and since the Revolution, and their respective claims to literary pre-eminence. Such a narrative would be interesting, as the greater part of them have rendered themselves less conspicuous in the world of letters than in taking a very active part in some of the most bloody tragedies of the Republic.
For instance: Bonaparte, Carnot,[1] Mouge,[1] le Blond,[1] Berthelet,[1] Foucroy,[1] Revellière,[1] Lepoux,[1] Cambacères, Merlin,[1] Talleyrand,[1] Roederer,[1] François de Neufchâteau, Chenier,[1] Thonin,[1] Mouette,[1] have all been known for their assassinations, robberies and atrocious crimes. Foucroy was the cause, for instance, of the murder of the immortal Lavoisier. All these ruffians and others space prevents my naming, furnish abundant matter for inquiry and reflection, but it is impossible to include such a length of biographies in a letter; but before I leave Paris I intend to procure sufficient authentic documents by which upon my return (should I escape in safety from the tyrant’s grasp) I shall be then enabled to drag these philosophical murderers and thieves out of their National Palace, strip them of their silken disguises, and expose them in all their naked deformity to the execration of mankind.
In vain do they flatter themselves that by the arts of a meretricious rhetoric they elude the vigilant pursuit of injured innocence and affronted justice, in vain do they suppose that they shall court foreign applause by associating with the learned of other countries. It is a disgrace and a dishonour to be favoured by the National Institute where a band of sanguinary ruffians pollute the halls consecrated to learning, science and wisdom. Whoever lives under a government where religion, morals and public freedom are revered, ought to reject their silver medal and procès verbal, as he would cast away from him food contaminated with poison.
If it be an honour to be elected a member of a society, learned, indeed, but fundamentally vicious and depraved, why not petition to be admitted to the Palace of Pandemonium?
The devils in hell are fully as knowing as the members of the Institute, and, for ought I know, not done greater evil to mankind. They are the fittest colleagues for such men, and not the upright and pensive cultivators of science and literature.