there was an appeal under writ of error, and the latter, a jealous
rival of the former, was ill-disposed towards the sacerdotal
authorities;[29] besides, in the latter case, far more than in the
former, the bishop found confronting him not merely the more or less
legal right of his own party, but again the allies and patrons of his
party, corporations and individuals who, according to an accepted
usage, interfered through their solicitations with the judges and
openly placed their credit at the service of their protégé. With so
many spokes in the wheels, the working of an administrative machine
was difficult; to give it effective motion, it required the steady
pressure, the constant starting, the watchful and persistent efforts
of a laborious, energetic, and callous hand, while, under the ancient
régime, the delicate white hands of a gentleman-prelate were ill-
adapted to this rude business; they were too nicely washed, too soft.
To manage personally and on the spot a provincial, complicated and
rusty machine, always creaking and groaning, to give one's self up to
it, to urge and adjust twenty local wheels, to put up with knocks and
splashes, to become a business man, that is to say a hard worker -
nothing was less desirable for a grand seignior of that epoch. In the
Church as in the State, he made the most of his rank; he collected and
enjoyed its fruits, that is to say money, honors and gratifications,
and, among these gratifications, the principal one, leisure; hence, he
abandoned every special duty, the daily manipulation of men and
things, the practical direction, all effective government, to his
ecclesiastical or lay intendants, to subordinates whom he scarcely
looked after and who, at his own house, on his own domain, replaced
him as fixed residents. The bishop, in his own diocese, left the
administration in the hands of his canons and grand-vicars; "the
official decided without his meddling."[30] The machine thus worked
alone and by itself, with very few shocks, in the old rut established