ether in contact but not associated; no longer
does any intimate, lasting and strong bond exist between them; nothing
remains of the old province but a population of inhabitants, a given
number of private persons under unstable functionaries. The bishop
alone has maintained himself intact and erect, a dignitary for life, the
conductor, by title and in fact, of a good many persons, the stationary
and patient undertaker of a great service, the unique general and
undisputed commander of a special militia which, through conscience and
professions, gathers close around him and, every morning, awaits his
orders. Because in his essence, he is a governor of souls. Revolution
and centralization have not encroached on his ecclesiastical
prerogative. Thanks to this indelible quality he has been able to endure
the suppression of the others; these have come back to him of themselves
and with others added, comprising local superiority, real importance and
local ascendancy; including the various honorable appellations which,
under the ancient regime, denoted his rank and preeminence; at the
present day, under the modern regime, 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 Besancon,[5225] among
1500 benefices and livings, he once conferred less than 100 of them,
while his metropolitan chapter appointed as many cures as himself; at
Arras, he appointed only 47 cures and his chapter 66; at Saint-Omer,
among the collators of curacies he ranked only third, afte