not be otherwise than a simple ministry of conservation; at the
present day it is a ministry of conquest and of apostleship. The
bishop, accordingly, must dispose of his priests as he thinks them fit
for this work, according to their zeal and to their possible success
in a country which has to be converted." Against the official
character and publicity of its judgments " it is important that it
should not make out of a misfortune which is reparable a scandal that
nothing can repair."

[44] "Moniteur," session of March 11, 1865.

[45] In the following Taine describes the centralization and
improvement of the Church administration which probably made many
socialist readers believe that the same kind of improvements easily
could be introduced into private enterprise at the same time making
them more determined to exclude children from the old families from
all kinds of leadership in the coming socialist state.

[46] "The Ancient Régime," pp. 65, 120, 150, 292. "Memoires inédits de
Madame de ....." (I am not allowed to give the author's name). The
type in high relief of one of these prelates a few years before the
Revolution may here be found. He was bishop of Narbonne, with an
income of 800,000 livres derived from the possessions of the clergy.
He passed a fortnight every other year at Narbonne, and then for six
weeks he presided with ability and propriety over the provincial
parliament at Montpellier. But during the other twenty-two months he
gave no thought to any parliamentary business or to his diocese, and
lived at Haute Fontaine with his niece, Madame de Rothe, of whom he
was the lover. Madame de Dillon, his grand-niece, and the Prince de
Guémenée, the lover of Madame de Dillon, lived in the same château.