practically, except in the official almanac, everybody addresses a
prelate as "my lord," and in the clergy, among believers, in writing
or in speaking to him, he is called "your Grace," under the republic
as under the monarchy.

Thus, in this provincial soil where other powers have lost their
roots, not only has he kept his, but he has extended them and much
farther; he has grown beyond all measure and now the whole
ecclesiastical territory belongs to him. Formerly, on this territory,
many portions of it, and quite large ones, were enclosures set apart,
reserves that an immemorial wall prevented him from entering. It was
not he who, in a great majority of cases, conferred livings and
offices; it was not he who, in more than one-half of them, appointed
to vacant curacies. At Besançon,[25] among 1500 benefices and
livings, he once conferred less than 100 of them, while his
metropolitan chapter appointed as many curés as himself; at Arras, he
appointed only 47 curés and his chapter 66; at Saint-Omer, among the
collators of curacies he ranked only third, after the abbey of Saint-
Martin and after the chapter of the cathedral. At Troyes, he could
dispose only of 197 curacies out of 372; at Boulogne, out of 180, he
had only 80, and this again because the chapter voluntarily abandoned
to him 16. Naturally, the eyes of all candidates turned towards the
collator; and, among the highest and most lucrative places, those
which gave the least trouble and afforded the most satisfaction, all
sinecures, ranks, simple benefices and large urban curacies,
probendaries and canonicates, most of the offices, titles, and incomes
that might tempt human ambition, were in the hands, not of the bishop,
but of the king or of the Pope, of an abbot or prior, of an abbess, or
of a certain university,[26] of this or that cathedral or college-body,
of a lay seignior, of a patentee, or of an indultaire, and often of the