umises a
l'ordinaire 305. Total 20,745 monks in 2,489 convents. To this must be
added the Peres de l'Oratoire, de la Mission, de la Doctrine chretienne
and some others; the total of monks being about 23,000.--As to nuns,
I have a catalogue from the National Archives of twelve dioceses,
comprising according to "France ecclesiastique" 1788, 5,576 parishes:
the dioceses respectively of Perpignan, Tulle, Marseilles, Rhodez,
Saint-Flour, Toulouse, le Mans, Limoges, Lisieux, Rouen, Reims, and
Noyon, in all, 5,394 nuns in 198 establishments. The proportion
is 37,000 nuns in 1,500 establishments for the 38,000 parishes
of France.--The total of regular clergy thus amounts to 60,000
persons.--The secular clergy may be estimated at 70,000: curates and
vicars 60,000 ("Histoire de l'Eglise de France," XII. 142, by the
Abbe Guettee); prelates, vicars-general, canons of chapters, 2,800;
collegiate canons, 5,600; ecclesiastics without livings, 3,000 (Sieyes).
Moheau, a clear-headed and cautious statistician, writes in 1778
("Recheches," p. 100): "Perhaps, to day, there are 130,000 ecclesiastics
in the kingdom." The enumeration of 1866 ("Statistique de la France,"
population), gives 51,100 members of the secular clergy, 18,500 monks,
86,300 nuns; total, 155,900 in a population of 38,000,000 inhabitants.

*****

NOTES:

[Footnote 6101: In 1998, 550 000 square kilometers. (SR.)]

(2) Archives nationales, G. 319 ("Etat actuel de la Direction de Bourges
au point de vue des aides," 1774).

(3) Blet, at the present day, contains 1,629 inhabitants. (This was
around 1884, in 1996 it remains a small commune and a village of 800
people on the route nationale N76 between Bourges and Sancoins. SR.)

(4) The farms of Blet and Brosses really produce nothing for the
proprietor, inasmuch as the tithes and the champart (field-rents),
(articles 22 and 23), are comprehended in the rate of the leases.

*****

END NOTE 2:

ON FEUDAL RIGHTS AND ON THE STATE OF FEUDAL DOMINION IN 1733.

The following information, for which I am indebted to M. de Boislisle,
is derived from an act of partition drawn up September 6, 1783.

It relates to the estates of Blet and Brosses. The barony and estate
of Blet lies in Bourbonnais, two leagues from Dun-le-Roi. Blet, says
a memorandum of an administrator of the Excise, is a "good parish; the
soil is excellent, mostly in wood and pasture, the surplus being
in tillable land for wheat, rye and oats. . . . T