During the vacations,[71] fairy scenes and pastorals were
performed there with costumes and dances, "The Enthronement of the
Great Mogul," and the "Shepherds in Chains"; the seminarians took
great care of their hair; a first-class hair-dresser came and waited
on them; the doors were not regularly shut: the youthful Talleyrand
knew how to get out into the city and begin or continue his
gallantries.[72] From and after the Concordat, stricter discipline
in the new seminaries had become monastic; these are practical
schools, not for knowledge, but for training, the object being much
less to make learned men than believing priests; education takes
precedence of instruction and intellectual exercises are made
subordinate to spiritual exercises[73] - mass every day and five
visits to the Saint-Sacrament, with one minute to half-hour prayer
stations; rosaries of sixty-three paters and aves, litanies, the
angelus, loud and whispered prayers, special self-examinations,
meditation on the knees, edifying readings in common, silence
until one o'clock in the afternoon, silence at meals and the
listening to an edifying discourse, frequent communions, weekly
confessions, general confession at New-year's, one day of retreat
at the end of every month after the vacations and before the
collation of each of the four orders, eight days of retirement
during which a suspension of all study, morning and evening
sermons, spiritual readings, meditations, orisons and other services
from hour to hour;[74] in short, the daily and systematic application
of a wise and steadily perfected method, the most serviceable for
fortifying faith, exalting the imagination, giving direction and
impulse to the will, analogous to that of a military school, Saint-Cyr
or Saumur, to such an extent that its corporeal and mental imprint
is indelible, and that by the way in which he thinks, talks, smiles,
bows and stands in your presence we at once recognize a former pupil
of Saint-Sulpice as we do a former pupil of Saumur and of Saint-Cyr.
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