a chapter composed of ecclesiastics belonging thereto and chosen from
among us and the bishops of the said country, our successors, when the
king shall have seen fit to found the seminary, or from those whom the
said seminary may be able of itself to furnish to this institution
through the blessing of God. We desire it to be a perpetual school of
virtue, and a place of training whence we may derive pious and capable
recruits, in order to send them on all occasions, and whenever there may
be need, into the parishes and other places in the said country, in
order to exercise therein priestly and other duties to which they may
have been destined, and to withdraw them from the same parishes and
duties when it may be judged fitting, reserving to ourselves always, and
to the bishops, our successors in the said country, as well as to the
said seminary, by our orders and those of the said lords bishops, the
power of recalling all the ecclesiastics who may have gone forth as
delegates into the parishes and other places, whenever it may be deemed
necessary, without their having title or right of particular attachment
to a parish, it being our desire, on the contrary, that they should be
rightfully removable, and subject to dismissal and displacement at the
will of the bishops and of the said seminary, by the orders of the same,
in accordance with the sacred practice of the early ages of the Church,
which is followed and preserved still at the present day in many
dioceses of this kingdom."

Although this foregoing period is somewhat lengthy and a little obscure,
so weighty with meaning is it, we have been anxious to quote it, first,
because it is an official document, and because it came from the very
pen of him whose life we are studying; and, secondly, because it shows
that at this period serious reading, such as Cicero, Quintilian, and the
Fathers of the Church, formed the mental pabulum of the people. In our
days the beauty of a sentence is less sought after than its clearness