Let us select only those of the prelacy, and but one particular side, that of money.

In the "Almanach Royal," and in "La France Ecclesiastique" for 1788, we may read their admitted revenues.

The veritable revenue, however, is one-half more for the bishoprics, an double and triple for the abbeys; and we must again double the veritable revenue in order to estimate its value in the money of to day.[1327].

The one hundred and thirty-one bishops and arch-bishops possess in the aggregate 5, 600, 000 livres of episcopal income and 1,200,000 livres in abbeys, averaging 50,000 livres per head as in the printed record, and in reality 100,000.

A bishop thus, in the eyes of his contemporaries, according to the statement of spectators cognizant of the actual truth, was "a grand seignior, with an income of 100,000 livres."[1328] Some of the most important sees are magnificently endowed.