rmontois are imposed for the benefit of His Serene Highness, the king
receiving absolutely nothing."[1325] Naturally authority and wealth go
together, and, the more an estate yields, the more its owner resembles
a sovereign. The archbishop of Cambray, Duc de Cambray, Comte de
Cambresis, possesses the suzerainty over all the fiefs of a region which
numbers over seventy-five thousand inhabitants. He appoints one-half of
the aldermen of Cambray and the whole of the administrators of Cateau.
He nominates the abbots to two great abbeys, and presides over the
provincial assemblies and the permanent bureau, which succeeds them. In
short, under the intendant, or at his side, he maintains a pre-eminence
and better still, an influence somewhat like that to day maintained over
his domain by grand duke incorporated into the new German empire. Near
him, in Hainaut, the abbe of Saint-Armand possesses seven-eighths of
the territory of the provostship while levying on the other eighth the
seigniorial taxes of the corvees and the dime. He nominates the provost
of the aldermen, so that, in the words of the grievances, "he composes
the entire State, or rather he is himself the State."[1326] I should
never end if I were to specify all these big prizes. Let us select only
those of the prelacy, and but one particular side, that of money. In
the "Almanach Royal," and in "La France Ecclesiastique" for 1788, we
may read their admitted revenues. The veritable revenue, however, is
one-half more for the bishoprics, an double and triple for the abbeys;
and we must again double the veritable revenue in order to estimate
its value in the money of to day.[1327]. The one hundred and thirty-one
bishops and arch-bishops possess in the aggregate 5, 600, 000 livres of
episcopal income and 1,200,000 livres in abbeys, averaging 50,000 livres
per head as in the printed record, and in reality 100,000. A bishop
thus, in the eyes of his contemporaries, according to the statement of
spectators cognizant of the actual truth, was "a grand seignior, with
an income of 100,000 livres."[1328] Some of the most important sees are
magnificently endowed. That of Sens brings in 70,000 livres; Verdun,
74,000; Tours, 82,000; Beauvais, Toulouse and Bayeux, 90,000; Rouen,
100,000; Auch, Metz and Albi, 120,000; Narbonne, 160,000; Paris and
Cambray, 200,000 according to official reports, and probably half as
much more in sums actually collected. Other sees, less lucrative, are,
pro