1885, p. 116, gives the number of Catholic religions in the Archdiocese
of New York at 117 regular priests, 271 brothers, 2136 religious women,
in addition to 279 secular priests.]

A pleasant life the inmates of some convents must have had of it. The
incomes were large, the duties easy.

Certain houses had been secularized and turned into noble chapters. The
ladies who inhabited them were freed from the vow of poverty. They wore
no religious vestment, but appeared in the fashionable dress of the day.
They received their friends in the convent, and could leave it
themselves to reenter the secular life, and to marry if they pleased.
Such a chapter was that of Remiremont in Lorraine, whose abbess was a
princess of the Holy Roman Empire, by virtue of her office. Her crook
was of gold. Six horses were harnessed to her carriage. Her dominion
extended over two hundred villages, whose inhabitants paid her both
feudal dues and ecclesiastical tithes. Nor were her duties onerous. She
spent a large part of her time in Strasburg, and went to the theatre
without scruple. She traveled a good deal in the neighborhood, and was a
familiar figure at some of the petty courts on the Rhine. The canonesses
followed her good example. Some of them were continually on the road.
Others stayed at home in the convent, and entertained much good company.
They dressed like other people, in the fashion, with nothing to mark
their religious calling but a broad ribbon over the right shoulder, blue
bordered with red, supporting a cross, with a figure of Saint Romaric.
No lady was received into this chapter who could not show nine
generations or two hundred and twenty-five years of chivalric, noble
descent, both on the father's and on the mother's side.

Such requirements as this were extreme, but similar conditions were not