Olier and Bourdoise accordingly, while carrying on the work of reform, and becoming heads of religious congregations, remained parish priests of St. Sulpice and Saint-Nicholas du Chardonnet.  The seminary had its origin in the assembling together of the priests into communities, and these communities became schools of clericalism, homes in which young men destined for the Church were piously trained for it.  What facilitated the creation of these establishments and made them innocuous to the state was that they had no resident tutors.  All the theological tutors were at the Sorbonne, and the young men from St. Sulpice and St. Nicholas, who were studying theology, went there for their lectures.  Thus the system of teaching remained national and common to all.  The seclusion of the seminary only applied to the moral discipline and religious duties.  This was the equivalent of the practice now prevalent among the boarding-schools which send their pupils to the Lycee.  There was only one course of theology in Paris, and that was the official one at the Faculty.  The work in the interior of the seminary was confined to repetitions and lectures.  It is true that this rule soon became obsolete.  I have heard it said by old students of St. Sulpice that towards the end of last century they went very little to the Sorbonne, that the general opinion was that there was little to be learnt there, and that the private lessons in the seminary quite took the place of the official lecture.  This organisation was very similar, as may be seen, to that which now obtains in the Normal School and regulates its relations with the Sorbonne.  Subsequent to the Concordat the whole of the education of the seminaries was given within the walls.  Napoleon did not think it worth while to revive the monopoly of the Theological Faculty.  This could only have been effected by obtaining from the Court of Rome a canonical institution, and this the Imperial Government did not care to have.  M. Emery, moreover, took good care never to suggest such a step.  He had anything but a favourable recollection of the old system, and very much preferred keeping his young men under his own control.  The lectures intra muros thus became the regular course of teaching.  Nevertheless, as change is a thing unknown at St. Sulpice, the old names remain what they were.  The seminary has no professors; all the members of the congregation have the uniform title of director.

The company founded by Olier retained until the Revolution its repute for modesty and practical virtue.  Its achievements in theology were somewhat insignificant, as it had not the lofty independence of Port-Royal.  It went too far into Molinism, and did not avoid the paltry meanness which is, so to speak, the outcome of the rigid ideas of the orthodox and a set-off against his good qualities.  The ill-humour of Saint Simon against these pious priests is, however, carried too far.  They were, in the great ecclesiastical army,