. A history of mediaeval and modern Europe for secondary schools. e every-where at Versailles was incredible. The three maiden aunts ofLouis XVI received an allowance of $120,000 for food!1 A longlist might be made of similar absurdities. Of course, all thisinvolved a shameless exploitation of the treasury; and a reignof what the modern age has called graft. 223. A worldly and unbelieving clergy. There were about 1 Naturally the menials who administered the affairs of these worthy ladiessaw to it that most of this money went into their own pockets. 386 HISTORY OF EUROPE 130,000 prelates, pries
. A history of mediaeval and modern Europe for secondary schools. e every-where at Versailles was incredible. The three maiden aunts ofLouis XVI received an allowance of $120,000 for food!1 A longlist might be made of similar absurdities. Of course, all thisinvolved a shameless exploitation of the treasury; and a reignof what the modern age has called graft. 223. A worldly and unbelieving clergy. There were about 1 Naturally the menials who administered the affairs of these worthy ladiessaw to it that most of this money went into their own pockets. 386 HISTORY OF EUROPE 130,000 prelates, priests, monks, and nuns in France. Aboutone fifth of the entire landed property of the kingdom belongedto the Church. Protestants, although not quite so drasticallypersecuted as under Louis XIV, had no legal status. ThisCatholic clergy had thus great wealth and an entire monopolyof religion; but the great churchmen, no more than the lay no-bility, displayed any sense of the responsibilities involved withtheir riches and influence. Between the upper clergy (bishops,. THE INTERIOR OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS, IN THE EIGHTEENTHCENTURY abbots, canons, etc.) and the rank and file of the parish prieststhere was a great gulf fixed. The regular parish priests wererecruited ordinarily from the lower classes. Their salarieswere miserably small: in 1784, their average income was only$140 per year. While the French Church was exempt from thetaxes which fell upon the non-noble laity, it paid a fair-sizedFree Gift to the king; but the lions share was usuallyexacted from the parish clergy. The great ecclesiastical offices were practically monopolized THE CAUSES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 387 by the scions of the nobility. The peasant paid a third heavytax to the Church (tithes) after he had satisfied the king andthe seigneur. His hard-earned money, however, went not forthe most part to the laborious and pious if perhaps narrow-minded local cure. The noble higher clergy absorbed fivesixths of the whole vas
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