in 1790.--Spontaneous revival of the institution
free of its abuses after 1800.--Democratic and republican
character of monastic constitutions.--Vegetation of the old
stock and multiplication of new plants,--Number of monks and
nuns.--Proportion of these numbers to the total population
in 1789 and 1878.--Predominance of the organizations for
labor and charity.--How formed and extended.--Social
instinct and contact with the mystic world.

However correct the life of a secular priest may be, he stills belongs
to his century. Like a layman, he has his own domicile and fireside, his
parsonage in the country with a garden, or an apartment in town--in
any event, his own home and household, a servant or housekeeper, who is
often either his mother or a sister; in short, a suitable enclosure
set apart, where he can enjoy his domestic and private life free of the
encroachments on his public and ecclesiastical life, analogous to that
of a lay functionary or a bachelor of steady habits. In effect, his
expenses and income, his comforts and discomforts are about the same.
His condition, his salary,[5301] his table, clothes and furniture, his
out-of-door ways and habits, give him rank in the village alongside of
the schoolteacher and postmaster; in the large borough or small town,
alongside of the justice of the peace and college professor; in the
large towns, side by side with the head of a bureau or a chief of
division; at Paris, in certain parishes, alongside of the prefect of
police and the prefect of the Seine.[5302] Even in the humblest curacy,
he regulates his budget monthly, spending his money without consulting
anybody. When not on duty, his time is his own. He can dine out, order
for himself at home a special dish, allow himself delicacies. If he does
not possess every comfort, he has most of them, and thus, like a
lay functionary, he may if he chooses get ahead in the world, obtain
promotion to a better curacy, become irremovable, be appointed canon and
sometimes mount upward, very high, to the topmost rank. Society has a
hold on him through all these worldly purposes; he is too much mixed
up with it to detach himself from it entirely; very often his
spiritual life droops or proves abortive under so many terrestrial
preoccupations.--If the Christian desires to arrive at the alibi and
dwell in the life beyond, another system of existence is essential for
him, entailing a protection against