[Footnote 1336: Ibid.. p. 271. One day the cardinal, showing his guests over his palace just completed, led them to the bottom of a corridor where he had placed water closets, at that time a novelty. M. Boutin de la Coulommière, the son of a receiver-general of the finances, made an exclamation at the sight of the ingenious mechanism which it pleased him to see moving, and, turning towards the abbé de Canillac, he says: "That is really admirable, but what seems to me still more admirable is that His Eminence, being above all human weakness, should condescend to make use of it." This anecdote is valuable, as it serves to illustrate the rank and position of a grand-seignior prelate in the provinces.] [Footnote 1337: Arthur Young, V.II. P.230 and the following pages.] [Footnote 1338: Abolition of the tithe, the feudal rights, the permission to kill the game, etc.] [Footnote 1339: De Loménie, "Les Mirabeau," p.134. A letter of the bailiff, September 25, 1760: "I am at Harcourt, where I admire the master's honest, benevolent greatness. You cannot imagine my pleasure on fête days at seeing the people everywhere around the château, and the good little peasant boys and girls looking right in the face of their good landlord and almost pulling his watch off to examine the trinkets on the chain, and all with a fraternal air; without familiarity. The good duke does not make his vassals to go to court; he listens to them and decides for them, humoring them with admirable patience." Lacretelle, "Dix ans d'épreuve," p. 58.] [Footnote 1340: "De l'état religieux," by the abbés de Bonnefoi et Bernard, 1784, I. pp. 287, 291.] [Footnote 1341: See on this subject "La partie de chasse de Henri IV" by Collé. Cf. Berquin, Florian, Marmontel, etc, and likewise the engravings of that day.] [Footnote 1342: Boivin-Champeaux, "Notice historique sue la Révolution dans le département de l'Eure," p. 63, 61.] [Footnote 1343: Archives nationales, Reports of the States-General of 1789, T, XXXIX., p. 111. Letter of the 6th March, 1789, from the curate of St. Pierre de Ponsigny, in Berry. D'Argenson, 6th July, 1756. "The late cardinal de Soubise had three millions in cash and he gave nothing to the poor."] [Footnote 1344: De Tocqueville, ibid.. 405.--Renauldon, ibid.. 628.] [Footnote 1345: The example is set by the king who sells to the farmer-generals, for an annual sum, the management and product of the principal indirect taxes.] [Footnote 1346: Voltaire, "Politique et Législation, La voix du Curé," (in relation to the serfs of St. Claude).--A speech of the Duke d'Aiguillon, August 4th, 1789, in the National Assembly: "The proprietors of fiefs, of seigniorial estates, are rarely guilty of the excesses of which their vassals complain; but their agents are often pitiless."]