_Paris, January 15, 1802._
As after one of those awful and violent convulsions of nature which
rend the bosom of the earth, and overthrow the edifices standing on
its surface, men gradually repair the mischief it has occasioned, so
the French, on the ruins of the ancient colleges and universities,
which fell in the shock of the revolution, have from time to time
reared new seminaries of learning, and endeavoured to organize, on a
more liberal and patriotic scale, institutions for