The State, also, frequently supports them;[31105] it repeatedly decides that in this asylum, or in that school, the "sisters" designated by the ancient foundation shall resume their work and be paid out of the income of the asylum or school.

Better still, and notwithstanding threatening decrees,[31106] Napoleon, between 1804 and 1814, allows fifty-four communities to arise and exist, outside of the congregations authorized by him, which do not submit their statutes to him and which dispense with his permission to exist; he lets them live and does not disturb them; he judges[31107] "that there is every sort of character and imagination, that eccentricities even should not be repressed when they do no harm," that, for certain people, an ascetic life in common is the only refuge; if that is all they desire they should not be disturbed, and it is easy to feign ignorance of them; but let them remain quiet and be sufficient unto themselves!--Such is the new growth of the regular clergy alongside of the secular clergy, the two main branches of the Catholic trunk.

Owing to the help, or to the authorization, or to the connivance of the State, inside or outside of its limitations, both clerical bodies, legally or in reality, recover a civil existence, and thus obtain, or at least nearly so, their physical maintenance.[31108] And nothing more.

Nobody, better than Napoleon, knows how to make a good bargain, that is to say, to give a little in order to gain a great deal.

In this treaty with the Church he tightens his purse-strings and especially avoids parting with his ready money.