bearing the same title, is a personage whose habits and origins are
different, a resident administrator, much less ornamental but much
more active and governing, provided with a more ample jurisdiction,
with more absolute authority and wielding more effective influence.
The final effect of the Revolution in relation to the bishop is the
same as in relation to the Pope, and in the French diocese, as in the
universal Church, the modern régime sets up a central, extraordinary,
enormous power of which the ancient regime knew nothing.

Formerly, the bishop encountered around him, on the spot, equals and
rivals, bodies of men or individuals, as independent and powerful as
himself, irremovable, owners of estates, dispensers of offices and of
favors, local authorities by legal sanction, permanent patrons of a
permanent class of dependents. In his own cathedral, his metropolitan
chapter was, like himself, a collator of benefice; elsewhere, other
chapters were so likewise and knew how to maintain their rights
against his supremacy. In each body of regular clergy, every grand
abbot or prior, every noble abbess was, like himself, a sort of
sovereign prince. The territorial seignior and justiciary on his own
domain, was through the partial survival of the old wholly secular
feudal order equally sovereign. Likewise sovereign, was, for its part,
the parliament of the province, with its rights of registry and of
remonstrance, with its administrative attributes and interference,
with its train of loyal auxiliaries and subordinates, from the judges
of the presidencies and bailiwicks down to the corporations of
advocates, prosecutors and other members of the bar.[23] The
parliamentarians of the district capital (chef-lieu) , purchasers and
owners of their offices, magistrates from father to son, much
wealthier and much prouder than nowadays, were, in their old
hereditary mansions, the real chiefs of the province, its constant