‘Well,’ continued Lebertre, ‘suppose that they are given to the clergy who by birth or political influence have some claim to receive them, what then? Is not the Church brought into intimate contact with both rich and noble, and poor and commoner? If her clergy are to exert influence over those in the highest classes, they must be enabled to move in those classes, and to leaven them. To do so, they must receive an income proportionate to the requirements of such a life. God forbid that the Church should be only the Church of the poor and ignorant; and that she must become, if you rob her of prizes. Educated and intellectual men will not enter her orders unless they are provided with a competency. We country curés do not want wealth; our lot is cast among the poor, and by being ourselves poor, we have a fellow-feeling for our flock, and our flock have an affection for us. The beneficed clergy, pluralists and commendatory abbots, are wealthy, and are thus enabled to enter into high society, and to infuse into it religious principles and a love of morality. Take away their means, and you withdraw all spiritual influence from the most powerful, because the highest, stratum of society. I propose as one candidate for the clergy of this assembly, M. Parizot de Durand, curé of Breteuil, a priest of unblemished character, and a man of solid common sense.’ M. de Durand was seconded. But immediately after, the Abbé Lecerf started up and proposed Thomas Lindet, curé of Bernay. Instantly an expression of anger,--a sudden dark cloud, obscured the countenance of the president. ‘I take it as a deliberate insult to myself, that a man should be proposed to represent the clergy of the diocese who is under inhibition from me,’ he said, in a passionate loud tone. Monseigneur de la Ferronnais shrugged his shoulders, and tapping the Bishop of Évreux on the back of his hand with his middle finger, said: ‘You have made as great a mistake now as you made a great hit by your first speech.’ That the Bishop of Lisieux was right became at once apparent. Lindet sprang up, on fire, in a blaze. ‘There, there!’ he said, stretching out his hands, that quivered with excitement and the vehemence of his utterance; ‘see what he wants you to commit yourselves to--to support the absolute and irresponsible exercise of discipline. Why am I under inhibition? I will tell you all. A friend of the bishop’s, then, is a man notorious for his immoralities, a man very great at Court, or be sure he would not be monseigneur’s friend. Well, this man attempted to seduce a poor girl, a peasant’s daughter. She fled from her seducer, and I protected her, and saved her, at the earnest entreaty of the man’s own wife. He thereupon charges me with what he himself had failed to do, and the bishop, who is his guest, complaisantly, at his host’s request, inhibits me without allowing me a fair hearing, and an open trial.’