Such, too, was the
elaborate system of state education which the philosopher Condorcet
[Footnote: Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794).] prepared and which,
though more pressing questions compelled its postponement, became the
basis on which the modern scheme of free public instruction has been
built up in France. Such, moreover, was the separation of Church and
state, effected in September, 1794, the establishment in the following
year of liberty of worship, and the restoration of the churches to
Christian worship on condition that the clergymen submitted to the laws
of the state. Such, finally, was the project of preparing a single
comprehensive code of law for the whole country. Although the legal
code was not completed until the dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte,
nevertheless the Convention made a beginning and incorporated in it a
fundamental principle of inheritance that has marked modern France--the
principle that no person may will his property to one direct heir to
the exclusion of others but that all children must inherit almost
equally.
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