local ascendancy; including the various honorable appellations which, under the ancient régime, denoted his rank and preeminence; at the present day, under the modern régime, they are no longer in use for a layman and even for a minister of state; after 1802, one of the articles of the Organic Laws,[5224] interdicts them to bishops and archbishops; they are "allowed to add to their name only the title of citizen and monsieur." But practically, except in the official almanac, everybody addresses a prelate as "my lord," and in the clergy, among believers, in writing or in speaking to him, he is called "your Grace," under the republic as under the monarchy. Thus, in this provincial soil where other powers have lost their roots, not only has he kept his, but he has extended them and much farther; he has grown beyond all measure and now the whole ecclesiastical territory belongs to him. Formerly, on this territory, many portions of it, and quite large ones, were enclosures set apart, reserves that an immemorial wall prevented him from entering. It was not he who, in a great majority of cases, conferred livings and offices; it was not he who, in more than one-half of them, appointed to vacant curacies. At Besançon,[5225] among 1500 benefices and livings, he once conferred less than 100 of them, while his metropolitan chapter appointed as many curés as himself; at Arras, he appointed only 47 curés and his chapter 66; at Saint-Omer, among the collators of curacies he ranked only third, after the abbey of Saint-Martin and after the chapter of the cathedral. At Troyes, he could dispose only of 197 curacies out of 372; at Boulogne, out of 180, he had only 80, and this again because the chapter voluntarily abandoned to him 16. Naturally, the eyes of all candidates turned towards the collator; and, among the highest and most lucrative places, those which gave the least trouble and afforded the most satisfaction, all sinecures, ranks, simple benefices and large urban curacies, probendaries and canonicates, most of the offices, titles, and incomes that might tempt human ambition, were in the hands, not of the bishop, but of the king or of the Pope, of an abbot or prior, of an abbess, or of a certain university,[5226] of this or that cathedral or college-body, of a lay seignior, of a patentee, or of an indultaire, and often of the titulary himself. Thus, the hold of the bishop on his clercs was feeble; he did not hold them through the hope of a favor. And, on the other hand, he had still less hold on them, no hold at all, through fear of losing favor. They might displease him almost with impunity; his faculty for punishment was much more restricted than his means of recompense. His subordinates could find shelter and refuge against his displeasure, and even against his hostility. In the first place, and as a principle, a titulary, whether ecclesiastic or secular, owned his office and hence was irremovable; they themselves, plain