The episcopal dignitaries were usually of noble blood and connected with the most ancient and distinguished families of France. Not so, however, with the inferior members of the hierarchy. The avarice, the extortion, the hypocrisy, the drunkenness, and the debauchery universally imputed to all included in that sacred profession had made it infamous. The prelates, indeed, enjoyed all that could be purchased or exacted by eminent birth, boundless opulence, and irresistible power. The priests, however, were nearer the people, and were taken from the lowest ranks of society. Such was their degradation, that it had passed into a proverb. The populace, by way of imprecation, were accustomed to say, “May I become a priest before I do such a thing!” Livings were filled exclusively from the ranks of the coarse and brutal peasantry, for no citizen of the middle class would permit his son to be disgraced by the assumption of the tonsure. Even respectable vassals recoiled from the equivocal honors of the Church, and the lords, who regarded the tithes as a portion of their legal perquisites, were forced to select as candidates for holy orders the most ignorant and degraded of their dependents and slaves. The rude manners and vicious tastes engendered by a debased and plebeian origin increased the hatred and contempt of the scoffing multitude. In some parts of Languedoc public feeling ran so high against the clergy, that priests, to avoid personal violence, were forced to conceal from the passers-by all outward evidences of their calling.