to his chiefs, especially to the commanding general, and that he has
given himself up entirely to prompt obedience, to obeying every order
issued without question or doubt.[83] Thus, in that parish where the
permanent curé was once installed, especially in the rural
districts,[84] the legal and popular governor of all souls, his
successor, the removable desservant, is merely a resident bailiff, a
sentry in his box, at the opening of a road which the public at large
no longer travel. From time to time he hails you! But scarcely any
one listens to him. Nine out of ten men pass at a distance, along a
newer, more convenient and broader road. They either nod to him afar
off or give him the go-by. Some are even ill-disposed, watching him or
denouncing him to the ecclesiastic or lay authorities on which he
depends. He is expected to make his orders respected and yet not
hated, to be zealous and yet not importunate, to act and yet not
efface himself: he succeeds pretty often, thanks to the preparation
just described, and, in his rural sentry-box, patient, resigned,
obeying his orders, he mounts guard lonely and in solitude, a guard
which, for the past fifteen years, (from 1870-1885) is disturbed and
anxious and becoming singularly difficult.


Notes:

[1] Artaud, "Histoire de Pie VII., I., 167.

[2] Comte d'Haussonville, "L'Église romaine et le premier Empire,
IV.,378, 415. (Instructions for the ecclesiastical commission of
1811.) "The Pope exercised the authority of universal bishop at the
time of the re-establishment of the cult in France.... The Pope, under
the warrant of an extraordinary and unique case in the Church, acted,