The
company exercised through its numerous provincial houses a decisive
influence upon the education of the French clergy, while in Canada
it acquired a sort of religious suzerainty which harmonised very well
with the English rule--so well-disposed towards ancient rights and
custom, and which has lasted down to our own day.
The Revolution did not have any effect upon St. Sulpice. A man of cool
and resolute character, such as the company always numbered among its
members, reconstructed it upon the very same basis. M. Emery, a
very learned and moderately Gallican priest, so completely gained
Napoleon's confidence that be obtained from him the necessary
authorisations. He would have been very much surprised if he had been
told that the fact of making such a demand was a base concession to
the civil power, and a sort of impiety. Thus things recurred to their
old groove as they were before the Revolution, the door moved on its
old hinges, and as from Olier to the Revolution there had not been
any change, the seventeenth century had still a resting-place in one
corner of Paris.
St. Sulpice continued amid surroundings so different, to be what it
had always been before--moderate and respectful towards the civil
power, and to hold aloof from politics.[1] With its legal status
thoroughly assured, thanks to the judicious measures taken by M.
Emery, St. Sulpice was blind to all that went on in the world outside.
After the Revolution of 1830, there was some little stir in the
college.
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