the taxes. If these
persons had several sons, they would place one in the King's service, one
in the Church, another in the Order of Malta as a chevalier servant
d'armes, and one in the magistracy; while the eldest preserved the
paternal manor, and if he were situated in a country celebrated for wine,
he would, besides selling his own produce, add a kind of commission trade
in the wines of the canton. I have seen an individual of this justly
respected class, who had been long employed in diplomatic business, and
even honoured with the title of minister plenipotentiary, the son-in-law
and nephew of colonels and town mayors, and, on his mother's side, nephew
of a lieutenant-general with a cordon rouge, unable to introduce his sons
as sous-lieutenants into a regiment of foot.

Another decision of the Court, which could not be announced by an edict,
was that all ecclesiastical benefices, from the humblest priory up to the
richest abbey, should in future be appanages of the nobility. Being the
son of a village surgeon, the Abbe de Vermond, who had great influence in
the disposition of benefices, was particularly struck with the justice of
this decree.

During the absence of the Abbe in an excursion he made for his health, I
prevailed on the Queen to write a postscript to the petition of a cure,
one of my friends, who was soliciting a priory near his curacy, with the
intention of retiring to it. I obtained it for him. On the Abbe's return
he told me very harshly that I should act in a manner quite contrary to
the King's wishes if I again obtained such a favour; that the wealth of
the Church was for the future to be invariably devoted to the support of
the poorer nobility; that it was the interest of the State that it should
be so; and a plebeian priest, happy in a good curacy, had only to remain
curate.

Can we be astonished at the part shortly afterwards taken by the deputies
of the Third Estate, when called to the States General?

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