" As the repairs on a
parsonage or on a church are usually at the expense of a seignior or of
a beneficiary often far off, and in debt or indifferent, it sometimes
happens that the priest does not know where to lodge, or to say mass. "I
arrived," says a curate of the Touraine, "in the month of June, 1788. .
. . The parsonage would resemble a hideous cave were it not open to all
the winds and the frosts. Below there are two rooms with stone floors,
without doors or windows, and five feet high; a third room six feet
high, paved with stone, serves as parlor, hall, kitchen, wash-house,
bakery, and sink for the water of the court and garden. Above are three
similar rooms, the whole cracking and tumbling in ruins, absolutely
threatening to fail, without either doors and windows that hold." And,
in 1790, the repairs are not yet made. See, by way of contrast, the
luxury of the prelates possessing half a million income, the pomp of
their palaces, the hunting equipment of M. de Dillon, bishop of Evreux,
the confessionals lined with satin of M. de Barral, bishop of Troyes,
and the innumerable culinary utensils in massive silver of M. de Rohan,
bishop of Strasbourg.--Such is the lot of curates at the established
rates, and there are "a great many" who do not get the established
rates, withheld from them through the ill-will of the higher clergy;
who, with their perquisites, get only from 400 to 500 livres, and who
vainly ask for the meager pittance to which they are entitled by the
late edict. "Should not such a request," says a curate, "be willingly
granted by Messieurs of the upper clergy who suffer monks to enjoy from
5 to 6,000 livres income each person, whilst they see curates, who are
at least as necessary, reduced to the lighter portion, as little for
themselves as for their parish?"--And they yet gnaw on this slight
pittance to pay the free gift. In this, as in the rest, the poor are
charged to discharge the rich. In the diocese of Clermont, "the curates,
even with the simple fixed rates, are subject to a tax of 60, 80, 100,
120 livres and even more; the vicars, who live only by the sweat of
their brows, are taxed 22 livres." The prelates, on the contrary, pay
but little, and "it is still a custom to present bishops on New-Year's
day with a receipt for their taxes."[1430]--There is no escape for
the curates. Save two or three small bishoprics of "lackeys," all the
dignities of the church are reserved to the nobles; "to be a b