month of August, 1767, the Abbe Bassinet, grand vicar of Cahors, on
pronouncing the panegyric of St. Louis in the Louvre chapel,[4227]
"suppressed the sign of the cross, making no quotation from Scripture
and never uttering a word about Christ and the Saints. He considered
Louis IX merely on the side of his political, moral and military
virtues. He animadverted on the Crusades, setting forth their absurdity,
cruelty and even injustice. He struck openly and without caution at the
see of Rome." Others "avoid the name of Christ in the pulpit and merely
allude to him as a Christian legislator."[4228] In the code which the
prevailing opinions and social decency impose on the clergy a delicate
observer[4229] thus specifies distinctions in rank with their proper
shades of behavior: "A plain priest, a curate, must have a little faith,
otherwise he would be found a hypocrite; at the same time, he must
not be too well satisfied, for he would be found intolerant. On the
contrary, the grand vicar may smile at an expression against religion,
the bishop may laugh outright, and the cardinal may add something of his
own to it." "A little while ago," a chronicle narrates, "some one put
this question to one of the most respectable curates in Paris: Do you
think that the bishops who insist so strenuously on religion have
much of it themselves? The worthy pastor replied, after a moment's
hesitation: There may be four or five among them who still believe."
To one who is familiar with their birth, their social relations, their
habits and their tastes, this does not appear at all improbable.
"Dom Collignon, a representative of the abbey of Mettach, seignior
high-justiciary and curate of Valmunster," a fine-looking man, fine
talker, and an agreeable housekeeper, avoids scandal by having his two
mistresses at his table only with a select few; he is in other respects
as little devout as possible, and much less so than the Savoyard
vicar, "finding evil only in injustice and in a lack of charity," and
considering religion merely as a political institution and for moral
ends. I might cite many others, like M. de Grimaldi, the young and
gallant bishop of Le Mans, who selects young and gallant comrades of his
own station for his grand vicars, and who has a rendezvous for pretty
women at his country seat at Coulans[4230]. Judge of their faith by
their habits. In other cases we have no difficulty in determining.
Scepticism is notorious with the Cardinal