ve become
opulent and powerful; that monachism was honored, and citizens the
most useless, the least submissive, and the most dangerous, were the
best recompensed, the most considered, and the best paid. They were
loaded with benefits, privileges, and immunities; they enjoyed
independence, and they had that great power which flowed from so great
license. Thus were priests placed above sovereigns themselves by the
imprudent devotion of the latter, and the former were enabled to give
the law and trouble the state with impunity.

The clergy, arrived at this elevation of power and grandeur, became
redoubtable even to monarchs. They were obliged to bend under the yoke
or be at way with clerical power. When the sovereigns yielded, they
became mere slaves to the priests, the instruments of their passions,
and the vile adorers of their power. When they refused to yield, the
priests involved them in the most cruel embarrassments; they launched
against them the anathemas of the church; the people were incited
against them in the name of heaven; the nations divided themselves
between the celestial and the terrestrial monarch, and the latter was
reduced to great extremities to sustain a throne which the priests
could shake or even destroy at pleasure. There was a time in Europe
when both the welfare of the prince and the repose of his kingdom
depended solely upon the caprice of a priest. In these times of
ignorance, of devotion, and of commotions so favorable to the clergy,
a weak and poor monarch, surrounded by a miserable nation, was at the
mercy of a Roman pontiff, who could at any instant destroy his
felicity, excite his subjects against him, and precipitate him into
the abyss of misery.

In general, Madam, we find that in countries where religion holds
dominion, the sovereign is necessarily dependent upon the priests; he
has no power except by the consent of the clergy; that power
disappears as soon as he displeases the self-styled vicegerents of
God, who are very soon able to array his subjects against him. The
people, in accordance with the principles of their religion, cannot
hesitate between God and their sovereign. God never says any thing
except what his priests say for him; and the ignorance and folly in
which they are kept by their spiritual guides prevent them from
inquiring whether God's ambassadors faithfully render his decrees.

Conclude, then, with me, that the interests of a sovereign who would
rule equitably