In 1789, this was not the case with the bishop; on two
occasions, and at two critical moments, the clergy of the inferior
order formed a separate band, at first at the elections, by selecting
for deputies cur?s and not prelates, and next in the national
assembly, by abandoning the prelates to unite with the Third Estate.
The intimate hold of the chief on his men was relaxed or broken. His
ascendency over them was no longer sufficiently great; they no longer
had confidence in him. His subordinates had come to regard him as he
was, a privileged individual, sprung from a another stock and
furnished by a class apart, bishop by right of birth, without a
prolonged apprenticeship, having rendered no services, without tests
of merit, almost an interloper in the body of his clergy, a Church
parasite accustomed to spending the revenues of his diocese away from
his diocese, idle and ostentatious, often a shameless gallant or
obnoxious hunter, disposed to be a philosopher and free-thinker, and
who lacked two qualifications for a leader of Christian priests:
first, ecclesiastical deportment, and next, and very often, Christian
faith.
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