[44]
A r?gime of this kind institutes in the body subject to it an almost
universal dependence, and hence entire submission, passive obedience,
and the stooping, prostrate attitude of the individual no longer able
to stand upright on his own feet.[45] The clergy to which it is
applied cannot fail to be managed from above, which is the case with
this one, through its bishops, the Pope's lieutenant-generals, who
give the countersign to all of them. Once instituted by the Pope,
each bishop is the governor for life of a French province and all-
powerful in his circumscription we have seen to what height his moral
and social authority has risen, how he has exercised his command, how
he has kept his clergy under discipline and available, in what class
of society he has found his recruits, through what drill and what
enthusiasm every priest, including himself, is now a practiced soldier
and kept in check; how this army of occupation, distributed in 90
regiments and composed of 50,000 resident priests, is completed by
special bodies of troops subject to still stricter discipline, by
monastic corporations, by four or five thousand religious
institutions, nearly all of them given to labor and benevolence; how,
to the subordination and correct deportment of the secular clergy is
added the enthusiasm and zeal of the regular clergy, the entire
devotion, the wonderful self-denial of 30,000 monks and of 120,000
nuns; how this vast body, animated by one spirit, marches steadily
along with all its lay supporters towards one end.
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