At Séez， when constitutional priests are in disfavor， the bishop is compelled to resign on the instant， while Abbé Langlois， his principal counsellor， taken by the gendarmes， led to Paris from police station to police station， is shut up in La Force， in secret confinement， with straw for a bed， during fourteen days， then imprisoned in Vincennes for nine months， so that， finally， seized with paralysis， he is transferred to an insane retreat， where he remains a prisoner up to the end of the reign.
Let us provide for the future as well as for the present， and， beyond the present clergy， let us train the future clergy. The seminaries will answer this purpose： " Public ones must be organized[83] so that there may be no clandestine seminaries， such as formerly existed in the departments of Calvados， Morbihan and many others； . . . the formation of young priests must not be left to ignorance and fanaticism." - "Catholic schools need the surveillance of the government." - There is to be one of these in each metropolitan district， and "this special school must be in the hands of the authorities." - "The directors and teachers shall be appointed by the First Consul"； men will be placed there who are "cultivated， devoted to the government and friendly to toleration； they will not confine themselves to teaching theology， but will add to this a sort of philosophy and correct worldliness." - A future curé， a priest who controls laymen and belongs to his century， must not be a monk belonging to the other world， but a man of this world， able to adapt himself to it， do his duty in it with propriety and discretion， accept the legal establishment of which he is a part， not damn his Protestant neighbors， Jews or freethinkers too openly， be a useful member of temporal society and a loyal subject of the civil power； let him be a Catholic and pious， but within just limits； he shall not be an ultramontanist or a bigot. - Precautions are taken to this effect. No seminarist may become subdeacon without the consent of the government， and the list of ordinations each year， sent to him at Paris by the bishop， is returned， cut down to the strictly necessary.[84] From the very beginning， and in express terms，[85] Napoleon has reserved all curacies and vicarages for "ecclesiastics pensioned by virtue of the laws of the Constituent Assembly." Not only， through this confusion between pension and salary， does he lighten a pecuniary burden， but he greatly prefers old priests to young ones； many of them have been constitutionnels， and all are imbued with Gallicanism； it is he who has brought them back from exile or saved them from oppression， and they are grateful for it； having suffered long and patiently， they are weary， they must have grown wiser， and they will be manageable.
Moreover， he has precise information about each one； their past conduct is a guarantee of their future conduct； he never chooses one of them with his eyes shut. On the contrary， the candidates for ordination are strangers， the government which accepts them knows nothing about them except that， at the age when the fever of growth or of the imagination takes a fixed form， they have been subject for five years to a theological education and to a cloistral life. The chances are that， with them， the feverishness of youth will end in the heat of conviction and in the prejudices of inexperience； in this event， the government which exempts them from the conscription to admit them in the Church exchanges a good military recruit for a bad ecclesiastical recruit ； in place of a servant it creates an opponent. Hence， during the fifteen years of his reign， Napoleon authorizes only six thousand new ordinations，[86] in all four hundred per annum， one hundred for each diocese or six or seven per annum. Meanwhile， by his university decrees， he lets lay daylight into clerical enclosures[87] and shuts the door of all ecclesiastical dignities to suspicious priests.[88]
For more security， in every diocese in which "the principles of the bishop" do not give him full satisfaction， he prohibits all ordination， nomination， promotion， or favor whatever. "I have stricken off[89] all demands relating to the bishoprics of Saint-Brieuc， Bordeaux， Ghent， Tournay， Troyes and the Maritime Alps. . . .