sing buildings, the palaces, castles, convents, and cathedrals,
and almost all the valuable movable property, such as furniture, plate,
objects of art, the accumulated masterpieces of centuries.--We can
judge of it by an estimate of the portion belonging to the clergy. Its
possessions, capitalized, amount to nearly 4,000,000,000 francs.[1205]
Income from this amounts to 80 or 100 millions. To this must be added
the dime (or tithes), 123 millions per annum, in all 200 millions, a sum
which must be doubled to show its equivalent at the present day. We
must also add the chance contributions and the usual church
collections.[1206] To fully realize the breadth of this golden stream
let us look at some of its affluents. 399 monks at Premontre estimate
their revenue at more than 1,000,000 livres, and their capital at
45,000,000. The Provincial of the Dominicans of Toulouse admits, for his
two hundred and thirty-six monks, "more than 200,000 livres net revenue,
not including the convent and its enclosure; also, in the colonies,
real estate, Negroes and other effects, valued at several millions."
The Benedictines of Cluny, numbering 298, enjoy an income of 1,800,000
livres. Those of Saint-Maur, numbering 1672, estimate the movable
property of their churches and houses at 24,000,000, and their net
revenue at 8 millions, "without including that which accrues to
Messieurs the abbots and priors commendatory," which means as much
and perhaps more. Dom Rocourt, abbot of Clairvaux, has from 300,000 to
400,000 livres income; the Cardinal de Rohan, archbishop of Strasbourg,
more than 1,000,000.[1207] In Franche-Comte, Alsace and Roussillon
the clergy own one-half of the territory, in Hainaut and Artois,
three-quarters, in Cambresis fourteen hundred plow-areas out of
seventeen hundred.[1208] Almost the whole of Le Velay belongs to
the Bishop of Puy, the abbot of La Chaise-Dieu, the noble chapter of
Brionde, and to the seigniors of Polignac. The canons of St. Claude, in
the Jura, are the proprietors of 12,000 serfs or 'mainmorts.'[1209]
Through fortunes of the first class we can imagine those of the second.
As along with the noble it comprises the ennobled. As the magistrates
for two centuries, and the financiers for one century had acquired or
purchased nobility, it is clear that here are to be found almost all the
great fortunes of France, old or new, transmitted by inheritance,
obtained through court favors, or acquired in business. When