Here and there, a few returned priests, in spite of the intolerant law and with the connivance of the local authorities, also a few scattered nuns, teach in a contraband fashion a few small groups of Catholic children; five or six little girls around a disguised Ursuline nun spell out the alphabet in a back room;[3165] a priest without tonsure or cassock secretly receives in the evening two or three youths whom he makes translate the De Viris .-- During the intervals, indeed, of the Reign of Terror, before the 13th of Vendemiaire and the 18th of Fructidor, sundry schools spring up again like tufts of grass in a mowed pasture-ground, but only in certain spots and meagerly; moreover, as soon as the Jacobin returns to power he stubbornly stamps them out;[3166] he wants to have teaching all to himself .-- Now the institution by which the State pretends to replace the old and free establishments makes a figure only on paper.

One ecole centrale in each department is installed or decreed, making eighty eight on the territory of ancient France; this hardly supplies the place of the eight or nine hundred high-schools (colleges), especially as these new schools are hardly viable, being in ruin at the very start,[3167] poorly maintained, badly furnished, with no preparatory schools nor adjacent boarding-houses,[3168] the programme of studies being badly arranged and parents suspicious of the spirit of the studies.[3169] Thus, there is little or no attendance at most of the courses of lectures; only those on mathematics are followed, particularly on drawing, and especially mechanical and geometrical drawing, probably by the future surveyors and engineers of roads and bridges, by building contractors and a few aspirants to the Ecole Polytechnique.

As to the other courses, on literature, history, and the moral sciences, as comprehended by the Republic and imposed by it, these obtain not over a thousand auditors in all France; instead of 72,000 pupils, only 7000 or 8000 seek superior education, while six out of seven, instead of seeking self-culture, simply prepare themselves for some practical pursuit.[3170] It is much worse with primary instruction.

This task is given to the local authorities.

But, as they have no money, they generally shirk this duty, and, if they do set up a school, are unable to maintain it.[3171] On the other hand, as instruction must be laic and Jacobin, "almost everywhere,"[3172] the teacher is an outcast layman, a fallen Jacobin, some old, starving party member, unemployed, foul-mouthed and of ill-repute.