Late in the reign of Napoleon, around 1812, a reformer within the Ministry that oversaw religion penned an angry treatise on the state of religion and the French clergy. Everything – from celibacy to their education – warranted reform, and the author noted in passing that high among clerical failings stood the complete refusal to undertake study in “les sciences mathématiques et physiques.” By comparison to the “rapid march of all the sciences, the general perfection of their methods, theology has remained stationary.” Even allowing for bias, there is little evidence to contradict this anonymous assessment of clerical education at the opening of the nineteenth century.

In 1812, the Catholic Church was directed by the university to consolidate its ecclesiastical secondary schools, and then to put them in towns where their students could take courses at a lycée or college. Cardinal Joseph Fesch, Archbishop of Lyon, took umbrage at the government’s commands. At the height of his power, Fesch had persuaded the Pope to come to Paris and crown Napoleon emperor. Despite receiving many honors, by 1812 Fesch had felt the cold chill that descended from Napoleon’s growing disputes with the papacy. Thus Fesch had little to lose when he wrote to the Grand Master of the University and the Ministry of Cults to inform them that philosophy undertaken by students possibly destined for the priesthood had to be under the careful oversight of a bishop.