ed in 1562. It is,
perhaps, not so much that we have become more law-abiding, as that we
realize that any such attempt must be fruitless when the strong arm of
the State is at hand, ready to assert the rights of the lawful
claimant.

In Erasmus' day might was often right. Thus in 1492 the Abbot of St.
Bertin's at St. Omer died, and the monks elected in his place a
certain James du Val, who was duly consecrated in July 1493. The
Bishop of Cambray, however, had had the abbey in his eye for his
younger brother Antony, who had been ejected ten years before by the
powerful family of Arenberg from the Abbey of St. Trond in Limburg,
and meanwhile had been living unemployed at Louvain. The Bishop
persuaded the Pope to annul du Val's election and appoint Antony in
his place, probably on some technical ground. Armed with this
permission he appeared at St. Omer in October 1493 and violently
installed his brother; who held the abbey undisturbed till his death
nearly forty years later. The Bishop's success with the Pope is the
more noteworthy, as for a period of seven years he himself had refused
to surrender an abbey near Mons to a papal nominee, who was not strong
enough to wrest it from him. Again, during the five years of the
English occupation of Tournay, 1513-18, there was a continual struggle
between two rival bishops, appointed when the see fell vacant in
1513--Wolsey nominated by Henry VIII and Louis Guillard by the Pope.
It goes without saying that Wolsey won; and Guillard did not get in
till 1519, the year after the evacuation by the English.

Fernand tells a story of violence at the monastery of Souillac, which
was closely connected with his own at Chezal-Benoit. When the Abbot
died, a monk of St. Martin's at Tours, who was a native of Souillac,
with the aid of a brother who was a court official, got himself put in
as abbot before the monks had time to elect. They appealed to the
king, but quite in vain; for instead of giving ear to their complaint
he sent down a troop of soldiers to support the invading Abbot. It was
a grievous time for the poor monks. The garrison did whatever they
pleased: imprisoned the faithful servants of the monastery, introduced
hunting-dogs and birds, roared out their licentious choruses to the
sound of lute and pipe, and gave up the whole day to games of every
sort, in which the weaker brethren joined. Those who refused to do so
or to violate their vows by eating flesh were insulted; and as t