ecruited. At the chapter of Alix, near
Lyons, the canonesses wear hoopskirts into the choir, "dressed as in the
world outside," except that their black silk robes and their mantles are
lined with ermine.[2176] At the chapter of Ottmarsheim in Alsace, "our
week was passed in promenading, in visiting the traces of Roman roads,
in laughing a good deal, and even in dancing, for there were many
people visiting the abbey, and especially talking over dresses." Near
Sarrebuis, the canonesses of Loutre dine with the officers and are
anything but prudish.[2177] Numbers of convents serve as agreeable and
respectable asylums for widowed ladies, for young women whose husbands
are in the army, and for young ladies of rank, while the superior,
generally some noble damsel, wields, with ease and dexterity, the
scepter of this pretty feminine world. But nowhere is the pomp of
hospitality or the concourse greater, than in the episcopal palaces.
I have described the situation of the bishops; with their opulence,
possessors of the like feudal rights, heirs and successors to the
ancient sovereigns of the territory, and besides all this, men of the
world and frequenters of Versailles, why should they not keep a court?
A Cice, archbishop of Bordeaux, a Dillon, archbishop of Narbonne, a
Brienne, archbishop of Toulouse, a Castellane, bishop of Mende and
seignior-suzerain of the whole of Gevaudan, an archbishop of Cambrai,
duke of Cambray, seignior-suzerain of the whole of Cambresis, and
president by birth of the provincial States-General, are nearly all
princes; why not parade themselves like princes? Hence, they build,
hunt and have their clients and guests, a lever, an antechamber, ushers,
officers, a free table, a complete household, equipages, and, oftener
still, debts, the finishing touch of a grand seignior. In the almost
regal palace which the Rohans, hereditary bishops of Strasbourg and
cardinals from uncle to nephew, erected for themselves at Saverne,[2178]
there are 700 beds, 180 horses, 14 butlers, and 25 valets. "The whole
province assembles there;" the cardinal lodges as many as two hundred
guests at a time, without counting the valets; at all times there are
found under his roof "from twenty to thirty ladies the most agreeable of
the province, and this number is often increased by those of the court
and from Paris. . . . The entire company sup together at nine o'clock in
the evening, which always looks like a fete," and the cardinal