There remained the corporate, ecclesiastic, and lay bodies, and, notably, the oldest, most opulent, and most considerable of all the regular and secular clergy.--Grave abuses existed here also, for, the institution being founded on ancient requirements, had not accommodated itself to new necessities.[2237] There were too many episcopal sees, and these were arranged according to the Christian distribution of the population in the fourth century; a revenue still more badly apportioned--bishops and abbés with one hundred thousand livres a year, leading the lives of amiable idlers, while curés, overburdened with work, have but seven hundred; in one monastery nineteen monks instead of eighty, and in another four instead of fifty;[2238] a number of monasteries reduced to three or to two inhabitants, and even to one; almost all the congregations of men going to decay, and many of them dying out for lack of novices;[2239] a general lukewarmness among the members, great laxity in many establishments, and with scandals in some of them; scarcely one-third taking an interest in their calling, while the remaining two-thirds wish to go back to the world,[2240]--it is evident from all this that the primitive inspiration has been diverted or has cooled; that the endowment only partially fulfills its ends; that one-half of its resources are employed in the wrong way or remain sterile; in short, that there is a need of reformation in the body.--That this ought to be effected with the co-operation of the State and even under its direction is not less certain. For a corporation is not an individual like other individuals, and, in order that it may acquire or possess the privileges of an ordinary citizen, something supplementary must be added, some fiction, some expedient of the law. If the law is disposed to overlook the fact that a corporation is not a natural personage, if it gives to it a civil personality, if it declares it to be capable of inheriting, of acquiring and of selling, if it becomes a protected and respected proprietor, this is due to the favors of the State which places its tribunal and gendarmes at its service, and which, in exchange for this service, justly imposes conditions on it, and, among others, that of being useful and remaining useful, or at least that of never becoming harmful. Such was the rule under the Ancient Régime, and especially since the Government has for the last quarter of a century gradually and efficaciously worked out a reform. Not only, in 1749, had it prohibited the Church from accepting land, either by donation, by testament, or in exchange, without royal letters-patent registered in Parliament; not only in 1764 had it abolished the order of Jesuits, closed their colleges and sold their possessions, but also, since 1766, a permanent commission, formed by the King's order and instructed by him, had lopped off all the dying and dead branches of the ecclesiastical tree.[2241] There was a revision of