nate parishioner, to plead against him,
to exact the tithe of peas and lentils, to waste his miserable existence
in constant strife. . . . I pity still more the curate with a fixed
allowance to whom monks, called gros decimateurs[1424] dare offer a
salary of forty ducats, to go about during the year, two or three miles
from his home, day and night, in sunshine and in rain, in the snow and
in the ice, exercising the most trying and most disagreeable functions."
Attempts are made for thirty years to secure their salaries and raise
them a little; in case of their inadequacy the beneficiary, collator
or tithe-owner of the parish is required to add to them until the cure
obtains 500 livres (1768), then 700 livres (1785), the vicar 200 livres
(1768), then 250 (1778), and finally 350 (1785). Strictly, at the prices
at which things are, a man may support himself on that.[1425] But he
must live among the destitute to whom he owes alms, and he cherishes at
the bottom of his heart a secret bitterness towards the indolent Dives
who, with full pockets, dispatches him, with empty pockets, on a mission
of charity. At Saint-Pierre de Barjouville, in the Toulousain, the
archbishop of Toulouse appropriates to himself one-half of the tithes
and gives away eight livres a year in alms. At Bretx, the chapter
of Isle Jourdain, which retains one-half of certain tithes and
three-quarters of others, gives ten livres; at Croix Falgarde, the
Benedictines, to whom a half of the tithes belong, give ten livres
per annum.[1426] At Sainte-Croix de Bernay in Normandy,[1427] the
non-resident abbe, who receives 57,000 livres gives 1,050 livres to the
curate without a parsonage, whose parish contains 4,000 communicants. At
Saint-Aubin-sur-Gaillon, the abbe, a gros decimateur, gives 350
livres to the vicar, who is obliged to go into the village and obtain
contributions of flour, bread and apples. At Plessis Hebert, "the
substitute deportuaire,[1428] not having enough to live on is obliged
to get his meals in the houses of neighboring curates." In Artois, where
the tithes are often seven and a half and eight per cent. on he product
of the soil, a number of curates have a fixed rate and no parsonage;
their church goes to ruin and the beneficiary gives nothing to the poor.
"At Saint-Laurent, in Normandy, the curacy is worth not more than 400
livres, which the curate shares with an obitier,[1429] and there are 500
inhabitants, three quarters of whom receive alms.