The Eve of the French Revolution

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CHAPTER III.

THE CLERGY.

The inhabitants of France were divided into three orders, differing in
legal rights. These were the Clergy, the Nobility, and the Commons, or
Third Estate. The first two, which are commonly spoken of as the
privileged orders, contained but a small fraction of the population
numerically, but their wealth and position gave them a great importance.

The clergy formed, as the philosophers were never tired of complaining,
a state within a state. No accurate statistics concerning it can be
obtained. The whole number of persons vowed to religion in the country,
both regular and secular, would seem to have been between one hundred
and one hundred and thirty thousand. They owned probably from one fifth
to one quarter of the soil. The proportion was excessive, but it does
not appear that the lay inhabitants of the country were thereby crowded.
Like other landowners, the clergy had tenants, and they were far from
being the worst of landlords. For one thing, they were seldom absentees.
The abbot of a monastery might spend his time at Versailles, but the
prior and the monks remained, to do their duty by their farmers. It is
said that the church lands were the best cultivated in the kingdom, and
that the peasants that tilled them were the best, treated.[Footnote:
Barthelemy, _Erreurs et mensonges historiques, xv. 40._ Article
entitled _La question des congregations il y a cent ans_, quoting
largely from Feroux, _Vues d'un Solitaire Patriote_, 1784. See also
Genlis, _Dictionnaire des Etiquettes,_ ii. 79. Mathieu, 324.
Babeau, _La vie rurale_, 133.] In any case the church was rich. Its
income from invested property, principally land, has been reckoned at
one hundred and twenty-four million livres a year. It received about as
much more from tithes, beside the amount, very variously reckoned, which
came in as fees, on such occasions as weddings, christenings, and
funerals.

Tithes were imposed throughout France for the support of the clergy.
They were not, however, taken upon all Articles of produce, nor did they
usually amount to one tenth of the increase. Sometimes the tithe was
compounded for a fixed rent in money; sometimes for a given number of
sheaves, or measures of wine per acre. Oftener it was a fixed proportion
of the crop, varying from one quarter to one fortieth. In some places
wood, fruit, and other commodities were exempt; in other places they
were charged. Tithe was in some cases taken of calves, lambs, chickens,
sucking pigs, fleeces, or fish; and the clergy or the tithe owners were
bound to provide the necessary bulls, rams, and boars. A distinction was
usually made between the Great tithes, levied on such common articles as
corn and wine, and the Small tithes, taken from less important crops. Of
these the former were often paid to the bishops, the latter to the
parish priest. The tithes had in some cases been alienated by the church
and were owned by lay proprietors. In general, it is believed that this
tax on the agricultural class in France amounted to about one eighteenth
of the gross product of the soil.[Footnote: Chassin, _Les cahiers
due clerge_, 36. Bailly, ii. 414, 419. Boiteau, 41. Rambaud, ii. 58
_n._ Taine, _L'ancien Regime_ (book i. chap ii.). The livre
of the time of Louis XVI. is commonly reckoned to have had at least
twice the purchasing power of the franc of to-day.]

The whole body of the clergy, as it existed within the boundaries of the
kingdom, was not subject to the same rules and laws. The larger part of
it formed what was known as the "Clergy of France," and possessed
peculiar rights and privileges presently to be described. Those
ecclesiastics, however, who lived in certain provinces, situated
principally in the northern and eastern part of the country, and annexed
to the kingdom since the beginning of the sixteenth century, were called
the "Foreign Clergy." These did not share the rights of the larger body,
but depended more directly on the papacy. They paid certain taxes from
which the Clergy of France were exempt. The mode of appointment to
bishoprics and abbacies was different among them from what it was in the
rest of the country. Throughout France, and in all affairs,
ecclesiastical and secular, were anomalies such as these.

The Church of France enjoyed great and peculiar privileges, both among
the churches of Christendom, and among the Estates of the French realm.
By the Concordat, or treaty of 1516, made between Pope Leo X. and King
Francis I., the nomination to bishroprics and to considerable
ecclesiastical benefices had been given to the king, while the Holy
Father kept only a right of veto on appointments. The _annates_, or
first-fruits of the bishoprics, taxes equal in theory to one year's
revenue on every change of incumbent, but in fact of less amount than
that, were paid to the Pope, and these, with other dues, made up a sum
of three or four million livres sent annually from France to Rome. On
the other hand, the Clergy of France was the only body in the state
which had undisputed constitutional rights independent of the throne.
Its ordinary assemblies were held once in ten years. The country was
divided into sixteen ecclesiastical provinces, each under the
superintendence of an archbishop. In each of these provinces a meeting
was held, composed of delegates of the various dioceses. Each of these
provincial meetings elected two bishops and two other ecclesiastics,
either regular or secular. These deputies received, from their
constituents, instructions called _cahiers_ to be taken by them to
the Ordinary Assembly of the clergy, which was held in Paris. This body
granted subsidies to the king, managed the debt and other secular
affairs of the clergy, and pronounced unofficially even in matters of
doctrine. Smaller Assemblies, nearly equal in power, came together at
least once during the interval which elapsed between the meetings of the
Ordinary Assemblies; so that as often as once in five years the Church
of France exercised a true political activity. The sum voted to the king
was called a Free Gift[Footnote: Don Gratuit], and the name was not
altogether inappropriate, for, although required was stated by the
king's ministers, conditions were not infrequently exacted of the crown.
Thus in 1785, on the occasion of a gift of eighteen million livres, the
suppression of the works of Voltaire was demanded. And once at least, as
late as 1750, on the occasion of a squabble between the church and the
court, the clergy had refused to make any grant whatsoever. The total
amount of the Free Gift voted during the reign of Louis XVI. was
65,800,000 livres, or less than four and a half millions a year on an
average. The grant was not annual, but was made in lump sums from time
to time; a vote of two thirds of the assembly being necessary for making
it. The assembly itself assessed the tax on the dioceses. A commission
managed the affairs of the clergy when no assembly was sitting. The
order had its treasury, and its credit was good. The king was its debtor
to the extent of about a hundred million livres.

The clergy itself was in debt. Instead of raising directly, by
taxation of its members, the money which it paid to the state, it had
acquired the habit of borrowing the necessary sum. The debt thus
incurred appears to have been about one hundred and thirty-four
million livres. In addition to the amount necessary for interest on
this debt, and for a provision for its gradual repayment, the order
had various expenses to meet. For these purposes it taxed itself to an
amount of more than ten million livres a year. On the other hand it
received back from the king a subsidy of two and a half million
livres. From most of the regular, direct taxes paid by Frenchmen the
Clergy of France was freed. [Footnote: _Revue des questions
historiques_, 1st July, 1890 (L'abbe L. Bourgain, _Contribution du
clerge a l'impot_). Sciout, i. 35. Boiteau, 195. Rambaud,
ii. 44. Necker, _De l'Administration_, ii. 308. The financial
statement given above refers to the Clergy of France only. Its
pecuniary affairs are as difficult and doubtful as those of every part
of the nation at this period, and have repeatedly been made the
subject of confused statement and religious and political
controversy. The Foreign Clergy paid some of the regular taxes, giving
the state about one million livres a year on an income of twenty
million livres. Boiteau, 196.]

The bishops were not subject to the secular tribunals, but other clerks
came under the royal jurisdiction in temporal matters. In spiritual
affairs they were judged by the ecclesiastical courts.

The income of the clergy, had it been fairly distributed, was amply
sufficient for the support of every one connected with the order. It
was, however, divided with great partiality. There were set over the
clergy, both French and foreign, eighteen archbishops and a hundred and
twenty-one bishops, beside eleven of those bishops _in partibus
infidelium_, who, having no sees of their own in France, might be
expected to make themselves generally useful. These hundred and fifty
bishops were very highly, though unequally paid. The bishoprics, with a
very few exceptions, were reserved for members of the nobility, and this
rule was quite as strictly enforced under Louis XVI. as under any of his
predecessors. Nothing prevented the cumulation of ecclesiastical
benefices, and that prelate was but a poor courtier who did not enjoy
the revenue of several rich abbeys. Nor was it in money and in
ecclesiastical preferment alone that the bishops were paid for the
services which they too often neglected to perform.

Not a few of them were barons, counts, dukes, princes of the Holy Roman
Empire, or peers of France by virtue of their sees. Several rose to be
ministers of state. Even in that age they were accused of worldliness.
It was a proverb that with Spanish bishops and French priests an
excellent clergy could be made. But not all the French bishops were
worldly, nor neglectful of their spiritual duties. Among them might be
found conscientious and serious prelates, abounding both in faith and
good works, living simply and bestowing their wealth in charity.
[Footnote: Rambaud, ii. 37. Mathieu, 151.]

After the bishops came the abbots. As their offices were in the gift of
the king, and as no discipline was enforced upon them, they were chiefly
to be found in the antechambers of Versailles and in the drawing-rooms
of Paris. They were not even obliged to be members of the religious
orders they were supposed to govern.[Footnote: The abbots of abbeys
_en commende_ were appointed by the king. These appear to have been
most of the rich abbeys. There were also _abbayes regulieres_,
where the abbot was elected by the brethren. Rambaud, ii. 53. The
revenues of the monasteries were divided into two parts, the _mense
abbatiale_, for the abbot, the _mense conventuelle_, for the
brethren. Mathieu, 73.] Leaving the charge of their monasteries to the
priors, they spent the incomes where new preferment was to be looked
for, and devoted their time to intrigues rather than to prayers. No
small part of the revenues of the clergy was wasted in the dissipations
of these ecclesiastic courtiers. They were imitated in their vices by a
rabble of priests out of place, to whom the title of abbot was given in
politeness, the little _abbes_ of French biography and fiction.
These men lived in garrets, haunted cheap eating-houses, and appeared on
certain days of the week at rich men's tables, picking up a living as
best they could. They were to be seen among the tradesmen and suitors
who crowded the levees of the great, distinguishable in the throng by
their black clothes, and a very small tonsure. They attended the toilets
of fashionable ladies, ever ready with the last bit of literary gossip,
or of social scandal. They sought employment as secretaries, or as
writers for the press. The church, or indeed, the opposite party, could
find literary champions among them at a moment's notice. Nor was hope of
professional preferment always lacking. It is said that one of the
number kept an ecclesiastical intelligence office. This man was
acquainted with the incumbents of valuable livings; he watched the state
of their health, and calculated the chances of death among them. He knew
what patrons were likely to have preferment to give away, and how those
patrons were to be reached. His couriers were ever on the road to Rome,
for the Pope still had the gift of many rich places in France, in spite
of the Concordat.[Footnote: Mercier, ix. 350.]

Another large part of the revenues of the church was devoted to the
support of the convents. These contained from sixty to seventy thousand
persons, more of them women than men. Owing to various causes, and
especially to the action of a commission appointed to examine all
convents, and to reform, close, or consolidate such as might need to be
so treated, the number of regular religious persons fell off more than
one half during the last twenty-five years of the monarchy. Yet many of
the functions which in modern countries are left to private charity, or
to the direct action of the state, were performed in old France by
persons of this kind. The care of the poor and sick and the education of
the young were largely, although not entirely, in the hands of religious
orders. Some monks, like the Benedictines of St. Maur, devoted their
lives to the advancement of learning. But there were also monks and nuns
who rendered no services to the public, and were entirely occupied with
their own spiritual and temporal interests, giving alms, perhaps, but
only incidentally, like other citizens. Against these the indignation of
the French Philosophers was much excited. Their celibacy was attacked,
as contrary to the interests of the state; they were accused of laziness
and greed. How far were the Philosophers right in their opposition? It
is impossible to discuss in detail here the policy of allowing or
discouraging religious corporations in a state. Should men and women be
permitted to retire from the struggles and duties of active life in the
world? Is the monastery, with its steady and depressing routine, its
religious observances, often mechanical, and its quiet life, more or
less degrading than the wearing toil of the world without, and the
coarse pleasures of the club or the tavern? Is it better that a woman,
whom choice or necessity has deprived of every probability of governing
a home of her own, should struggle against the chances and temptations
of city life, or the constant drudgery of spinsterhood in the country;
or that she should find the stupefying protection of a convent? These
questions have seldom been answered entirely on their own merits. They
have presented themselves in company with others even more important;
with questions of freedom of conscience and of national existence. The
time seems not far distant when they must be reconsidered for their own
sake. Already in France the persons leading a monastic life are believed
to be twice as numerous as they were at the outbreak of the Revolution.
It is difficult to ascertain the number in our own country, but it is
not inconsiderable.[Footnote: Rambaud (ii. 52 and _n._) reckons
100,000 in the 18th century and 158,500 to-day in France, but the
figures for the last century are probably too high, at least if 1788 be
taken as the point of comparison. Sadlier's _Catholic Directory_,
1885, p. 116, gives the number of Catholic religions in the Archdiocese
of New York at 117 regular priests, 271 brothers, 2136 religious women,
in addition to 279 secular priests.]

A pleasant life the inmates of some convents must have had of it. The
incomes were large, the duties easy.

Certain houses had been secularized and turned into noble chapters. The
ladies who inhabited them were freed from the vow of poverty. They wore
no religious vestment, but appeared in the fashionable dress of the day.
They received their friends in the convent, and could leave it
themselves to reenter the secular life, and to marry if they pleased.
Such a chapter was that of Remiremont in Lorraine, whose abbess was a
princess of the Holy Roman Empire, by virtue of her office. Her crook
was of gold. Six horses were harnessed to her carriage. Her dominion
extended over two hundred villages, whose inhabitants paid her both
feudal dues and ecclesiastical tithes. Nor were her duties onerous. She
spent a large part of her time in Strasburg, and went to the theatre
without scruple. She traveled a good deal in the neighborhood, and was a
familiar figure at some of the petty courts on the Rhine. The canonesses
followed her good example. Some of them were continually on the road.
Others stayed at home in the convent, and entertained much good company.
They dressed like other people, in the fashion, with nothing to mark
their religious calling but a broad ribbon over the right shoulder, blue
bordered with red, supporting a cross, with a figure of Saint Romaric.
No lady was received into this chapter who could not show nine
generations or two hundred and twenty-five years of chivalric, noble
descent, both on the father's and on the mother's side.

Such requirements as this were extreme, but similar conditions were not
unusual. The Benedictines of Saint Claude, transformed into a chapter of
canonesses, required sixteen quarterings for admission; that is to say,
that every canoness must show by proper heraldic proof, that her sixteen
great--grandfathers and great--grandmothers were of noble blood. The
Knights of Malta required but four quarterings. They had two hundred and
twenty commanderies in France, with eight hundred Knights. The Grand
Priory gave an income of sixty thousand livres to the Prior, who was
always a prince. The revenues of the order were 1,750,000 livres.

But very rich monasteries were exceptional after all. Those where life
was hard and labor continuous were far more common. In some of them,
forty men would be found living on a joint income of six thousand livres
a year. They cultivated the soil, they built, they dug. They were not
afraid of great undertakings in architecture or engineering, to be
accomplished only after long years and generations of labor, for was not
their corporation immortal? Then we have the begging orders, infesting
the roads and villages, and drawing several million livres a year from
the poorer classes, which supported and grumbled at them. And against
the luxury of the noble chapters must be set the silence, the vigils,
the fasts of La Trappe. This monastery stood in a gloomy valley, sunk
among wooded hills. The church and the surrounding buildings were mostly
old, and all sombre and uninviting. Each narrow cell was furnished with
but a mattress, a blanket and a table, without chair or fire. The monks
were clad in a robe and a hood, and wore shoes and stockings, but had
neither shirt nor breeches. They shaved three times a year. Their food
consisted of boiled vegetables, with salad once a week; never any butter
nor eggs. Twice in the night they rose, and hastened shivering to the
chapel. Never did they speak, but to their confessor; until, in his last
hour, each was privileged to give to the prior his dying messages.
Hither, from the active and gay world of philosophy and frivolity would
suddenly retire from time to time some young officer, scholar, or
courtier. Here, bound by irrevocable vows, he could weep over his sins,
or gnash his teeth at the folly that had brought him, until he found
peace at last in life or in the grave.

To enjoy the temporal privileges of the religious life neither any great
age nor any extensive learning was required. To hold a cure of souls or
the abbacy of a "regular" convent (whose inmates chose their abbot), a
man must be twenty-five years old. But an abbot appointed by the king
need only be twenty-two, a canon of a cathedral fourteen, and a chaplain
seven. It cannot be doubted that persons of either sex were obliged to
make irrevocable vows, without any proof of free vocation, or any reason
to expect a fixed resolution. Daughters and younger sons could thus be
conveniently disposed of. A larger share was left for the family, for
the religious were civilly dead, and did not take part in the
inheritance. On the other hand, misfortune and want need not be feared
for the inmate of the convent. If a nun were lost to the joys of the
world, she was lost to its cares. To make such a choice, to commit
temporal suicide, the very young should surely not be admitted. Yet it
was not until 1768 that the time for taking final vows was advanced to
the very moderate age of twenty-one for young men and eighteen for
girls.[Footnote: Rambaud, ii. 45. Mathieu, 43. Chassin, 25. Boiteau,
176. Bailly, 421. Mme. d'Oberkirch, 127. Mme. de Genlis, _Dict. des
Etiquettes_, i. Ill _n._, _Le Comte de Fersen et la Cour de
France_, I. xxix. Mercier, xi. 358.]

The secular clergy was about as numerous as the regular. It was
principally composed of the _cures_ and _vicaires_ who had charge of
parishes.[Footnote: The bishops, of course, belonged to the secular
clergy. So, in fact, did the canons; who, on account of the similarity
of their mode of life, have been treated with the regulars. In the
French hierarchy the _cure_ comes above the _vicaire_. The relation
is somewhat that of _parson_ and _curate_ in the church of England.]
These men were mostly drawn from the lower classes of society, or at
any rate not from the nobility. They had therefore very little chance
of promotion. Some of them in the country districts were very poor;
for the great tithes, levied on the principal crops, generally
belonged to the bishops, to the convents of regulars, or to laymen;
and only the lesser tithes, the occasional fees,[Footnote: _Casuel._]
and the product of a small glebe were reserved for the parish priest,
and the latter was liable to continual squabbles with the peasants
concerning his dues. But the parish priest, with all other churchmen,
was exempt from the state taxes, although obliged to pay a proportion
of the _decimes_,[Footnote: _Decime_, in the singular, was an
extraordinary tax levied on ecclesiastical revenue for some object
deemed important. _Decimes_, in the plural, was the tax paid annually
by benefices. _Dime_, tithe (see Littre, _Decime_). It seems a
question whether the proportion of the _decimes_ paid by the parish
priests was too large. See _Revue des questions historiques_, 1st July
1890, 102. Necker, _De l'Administration_, ii. 313.] or special tax
laid by the clergy on their own order. Moreover, the government set a
minimum;[Footnote: _Portion congrue._] and if the income of the parish
priest fell below it, the owner of the great tithes was bound to make
up the difference. This minimum was set at five hundred livres a year
for a _cure_ in 1768, and raised to seven hundred in 1785. A _vicaire_
received two hundred and three hundred and fifty. These amounts do not
seem large, but they must have secured to the country priest a
tolerable condition, for we do not find that the clerical profession
was neglected.

Apart from considerations of material well being, the condition of the
parish priest was not undesirable. He was fairly independent, and could
not be deprived of his living without due process of law. His house was
larger or smaller according to his means, but his authority and
influence might in any case be considerable. He had more education and
more dealings with the outer world than most of his parishioners. To him
the intendant of the province might apply for information concerning the
state of his village, and the losses of the peasants by fire, or by
epidemics among their cattle. His sympathy with his fellow-villagers was
the warmer, that like them he had a piece of ground to till, were it
only a garden, an orchard, or a bit of vineyard. Round his door, as
round theirs, a few hens were scratching; perhaps a cow lowed from her
shed, or followed the village herd to the common. The priest's servant,
a stout lass, did the milking and the weeding. In 1788, a provincial
synod was much disturbed by a motion, made by some fanatic in the
interest of morals, that no priest should keep a serving-maid less than
forty-five years of age. The rule was rejected on the ground that it
would make it impossible to cultivate the glebes. Undoubtedly, the
priests themselves often tucked up the skirts of their cassocks, and
lent a hand in the work. They were treated by their flocks with a
certain amount of respectful familiarity. They were addressed as
_messire_. With the joys and sorrows of their parishioners, their
connection was at once intimate and professional. Their ministrations
were sought by the sick and the sad, their congratulations by the happy.
No wedding party nor funeral feast was complete without them.[Footnote:
Turgot, v. 364. This letter is very interesting, as showing the
importance of the _cures_ and their possible dealings with the
intendant. Mathieu, 152. Babeau, _La vie rurale_, 157. A good study
of the clergy before the Revolution is found in an article by Marius
Sepet (_La societe francaise a la veille de la revolution_), in the
_Revue des questions historiques_, 1st April and 1st July, 1889.]

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