1850—1854 53 



"What we understood by the liberty of teaching," wrote 

 Louis Veuillot, " was not a share given to the Church, but the 

 destruction of monopoly. . . . No alliance with the University ! 

 Away with its books, inspectors, examinations, certificates, 

 diplomas ! All that means the hand of the State laid on the 

 liberty of the citizen ; it is the breath of incredulity on the 

 younger generation." Confronted by the violent rejection of 

 any attempt at reconciliation and threatened interference with 

 the University on the part of the Church, the Government was 

 trying to secure to itself the whole teaching fraternity. 



The primary schoolmasters groaned under the heavy yoke 

 of the prefects. "These deep politicians only know how to 

 dismiss. . . . The rectors will become the valets of the pre- 

 fects ..." wrote Pasteur with anger and distress in a letter 

 dated July, 1850. After the primary schools, the attacks now 

 reached the colleges. The University was accused of attend- 

 ing exclusively to Latin verse and Greek translations, and of 

 neglecting the souls of the students. Romieu, who ironically 

 dubbed the University " Alma Parens," and attacked it most 

 bitterly, seemed hardly fitted for the part of justiciary. He 

 was a former pupil of the Ecole Poly technique, who wrote 

 vaudevilles until he was made a prefect by Louis Philippe. 

 He was celebrated for various tricks which amused Paris and 

 disconcerted the Government, much to the joy of the Prince de 

 Joinville, 1 who loved such mystifications. After the fall of 

 Louis Philippe, Komieu became a totally different personality. 

 He had been supposed to take nothing seriously ; he now put a 

 tragic construction on everything. He became a prophet of 

 woe, declaring that "gangrene was devouring the souls ol 

 eight year old children." According to him, faith, respect, all 

 was being destroyed ; he anathematized Instruction without 

 Education, and stigmatized village schoolmasters as "obscure 

 apostles" charged with "preaching the doctrines of revolt." 

 This violence was partAy oratory, but oratory does not minimize 

 violence, it excites it. Every pamphleteer ends by being a 

 bond-slave to his own phraseology. 



When Komieu appeared in Strasburg as an Envoy Extra- 

 ordinary entrusted by the Government with a general inquiry, 

 he found that M. Laurent did not answer to that ideal of a 



1 Prince de Joinville. Third son of Louis Philippe, and an Admiral 

 in the French navy. It was he who was sent to fetch Napoleon's remains 

 from St. Helena. [Trans.] 



