and still subsists.

At the present day, conformably to the statute of 1802, the cathedral
chapter,[33] except in case of one interim, is a lifeless and still-
born body, a vain simulachre; it is always, by title or on paper, the
Catholic "senate," the bishop's obligatory "council";[34] but he takes
his councillors where he pleases, outside of the chapter, if that
suits him, and he is free not to take any of them, " to govern alone,
to do all himself." It is he who appoints to all offices, to the five
or six hundred offices of his diocese; he is the universal collator of
these and, nine times out of ten, the sole collator; excepting eight
or nine canonships and the thirty or forty cantonal curacies, which
the government must approve, he alone makes appointments and without
any person's concurrence. Thus, in the way of favors, his clerical
body has nothing to expect from anybody but himself. - And, on the
other hand, they no longer enjoy any protection against his harshness;
the hand which punishes is still less restrained than that which
rewards; like the cathedral chapter, the ecclesiastical tribunal has
lost its consistency and independence, its efficiency; nothing remains
of the ancient bishop's court but an appearance and a name.[35]

At one time, the bishop in person is himself the whole court; he
deliberates only with himself and decides ex informata conscientia
without a trial, without advice, and, if he chooses, in his own
cabinet with closed doors, in private according to facts, the value of
which he alone estimates, and through motives of which he is the sole
appreciator. At another time, the presiding magistrate is one of his
grand-vicars, his revocable delegate, his confidential man, his
megaphone, in short, another self, and this official acts without the
restraint of ancient regulations, of a fixed and understood procedure