At the period of which I am now treating, the clergy, both regular and secular, had attained unprecedented wealth and power. Never, perhaps, had France been more fully represented in the "Sacred College." Assuredly never since the residence of the Popes in Avignon had the French members possessed such immense riches. Thirteen French cardinals sat in the papal consistory at one time in the reign of Francis the First; twelve at the accession of his son to the throne.[96] Their influence in the kingdom was almost beyond conception, both on account of the multitude of benefices they held, and the distinction of the families from whom they sprang and whose titles they retained. Some were the incumbents of as many as _ten_ bishoprics and abbeys; while the cardinals of Bourbon, of Lorraine, of Châtillon, of Du Bellay, and of Armagnac were of the best blood in the realm, and enjoyed in their own right, or by reason of their office, very extensive jurisdiction. [Sidenote: Non-residence of the prelates.] A standing reproach against the prelates was their non-residence in the dioceses committed to their pastoral supervision. In fact, when the Council of Trent, by one of its first decrees, forbade a plurality of benefices and enjoined residence, its action was regarded as an open declaration of war against the French episcopate.[97] But if this abuse is deplored by Roman Catholic historians as the fruitful cause of the introduction and rapid progress of Protestantism,[98] the reformers, viewing their work as an instrument specially designed by heaven for the purification of a corrupt church, might well be justified in regarding the negligence of the bishops as a wise providential arrangement. Many a feeble germ of truth was spared the violence of persecution until the kindly sun and the plentiful showers had conferred greater powers of endurance. Happily for the reformers, the duty of watching for the first appearance of reputed heresy, which belonged properly to the bishops, was but poorly discharged by many of the deputies to whom they entrusted it. Nor could a delegated authority always accomplish what might have been done by a principal.[99] [Sidenote: Revenues of the clergy.] The annual revenues of the clergy of France were estimated by a Venetian ambassador, with unsurpassed facilities for obtaining accurate information, at six million crowns of gold, out of the fifteen millions that constituted the total revenues of the kingdom. While the clergy thus absorbed _two-fifths_ of the whole income of France, the king was limited to one million and a half crowns, or just one-tenth, derived from his particular estates.[100] [Sidenote: Morals of the clergy.]