hange in the jurisprudence which concerns him a no less
decisive change in the titles which place and qualify him. Before 1789,
there were in France 36,000 cures entitled irremovable; at the present
day, there are only 3,425; before 1789, there were only 2500 cures
entirely removable, while to-day there are 34,042;[5240] all of the
latter, appointed by the bishop without the approbation of the civil
powers, are removable at his discretion; their parochial ministry is
simply a provisional commission; they may be placed elsewhere,
passing from one precarious curacy to another no less precarious. "At
Valence,[5241] Mgr. Chartrousse, in one month transferred 150 priests
from one parish to another. In 1835, in the diocese of Valence, 35
transfers were sent out by the same mail." No assistant-priest, however
long in his parish, feels that he is at home there, on his own domain,
for the rest of his life; he is merely there in garrison, about the same
as lay functionaries and with less security, even when irreproachable.
For he may be transplanted, not alone for spiritual reasons, but
likewise for political reasons. He has not grown less worthy, but the
municipal council or the mayor have taken a dislike to his person;
consequently to tranquilize things, he is displaced. Far better, he had
become worthy and is on good terms with the municipal council and the
mayor; wherever he has lived he has known how to mollify these,
and consequently "he is removed from parish to parish,[5242] chosen
expressly to be put into those where there are troublesome, wrangling,
malevolent, and impious mayors." It is for the good of the service and
in the interest of the Church. The bishop subordinates persons to this
superior interest. The legislation of 1801 and 1802 has conferred full
powers upon him and he exercises them; among the many grips by which he
holds his clergy the strongest is the power of removal, and he uses it.
Into all civil or ecclesiastical institutions Napoleon, directly or by
counterstrokes, has injected his spirit, the military spirit; hence the
authoritative regime, still more firmly established in the Church than
in the State, because that is the essence of the Catholic institution;
far from being relaxed in this, it has become stricter; at present it is
avowed, proclaimed, and even made canonical; the bishop, in our days,
in fact as in law, is a general of division, and, in law as in fact,
his cures are simply sergeants or c