"If they have no private fortune they live more penuriously than the poorest labourers in Chartres. Most of them simply vegetate; some perform Mass for Sisterhoods, or are convent chaplains, but that brings in very little, two hundred or two hundred and fifty francs perhaps. Another holds the post of secretary to the diocese, by which he gets rooms and as much, perhaps, as six hundred francs. Yet another conducts the services of the holy week known as the Voice of Our Lady of Chartres, and acts as precentor; and some find employment as the Bishop's officials. Each one, in short, has a struggle to earn his food and lodging." "What exactly is a Canon; what are his functions, and the origin of his office?" "The origin? It is lost in the night of ages. It is supposed that Colleges of Canons existed in the time of Pepin le Bref; it is at any rate certain that during his reign Saint Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz, assembled the clerks of his cathedral and obliged them to live together, in a house in common, as though it were a convent, under a rule of which Charlemagne makes mention in his Capitularies.--A Canon's functions? They consist in the solemn celebration of the Canonical services, and the direction of all processions. As a matter of conscience every Canon is required in the first place to reside in the town where the church is situated to whose service he is attached; then to be present at the Canonical hours when Mass is said; finally to sit on the meetings of the Chapter on certain fixed days. But to tell the truth, their part has almost fallen into desuetude. The Council of Trent speaks of them as the '_Senatus Ecclesiae_,' the Senate of the Church, and they then formed the necessary Council of the Bishop. In these days the prelates do not even consult them. "They only exercise a small part of their lost prerogatives when the See is vacant. At that time the Chapter acts in the place of the Bishop, and even then its rights are greatly restricted. As it has not Episcopal Orders, it can exercise none of the powers inherent in them. It cannot consequently ordain or confirm." "And if the See remains long vacant?" "Then the Chapter requests the Bishop of a neighbouring diocese to ordain its seminarists, and confirm the children it presents to him. In short, as you see, a Canon is not a very important gentleman. "I am not speaking, of course, of Honorary Canons, or Titular Canons. They have no duties to fulfil; they merely enjoy an honorary title which allows them to wear the Canon's hood, by permission of their own Bishop when, as frequently happens, they belong to another diocese.