(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.
[Sidenote: RULES OF NATIONAL INSTITUTE]
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.