How can ameliorations be looked for from those who even refuse to keep things up and make indispensable repairs ?" A sure proof that their absence is the cause of the evil is found in the visible difference between the domain worked under absent abbe-commendatory and a domain superintended by monks living on the spot "The intelligent traveler recognizes it" at first sight by the state of cultivation.

"If he finds fields well enclosed by ditches, carefully planted, and covered with rich crops, these fields, he says to himself; belong to the monks.

Almost always, alongside of these fertile plains, is an area of ground badly tilled and almost barren, presenting a painful contrast; and yet the soil is the same, being two portions of the same domain; he sees that the latter is the portion of the abbe-commendatory." "The abbatial manse." said Lefranc de Pompignan, "frequently looks like the property of a spendthrift; the monastic manse is like a patrimony whereon nothing is neglected for its amelioration," to such an extent that "the two-thirds" which the abbe enjoys bring him less than the third reserved by his monks .-- The ruin or impoverishment of agriculture is, again, one of the effects of absenteeism.

There was, perhaps, one-third of the soil in France, which, deserted as in Ireland, was as badly tilled, as little productive as in Ireland in the hands of the rich absentees, the English bishops, deans and nobles.
Doing nothing for the soil, how could they do anything for men?
Now and then, undoubtedly, especially with farms that pay no rent, the steward writes a letter, alleging the misery of the farmer.

There is no doubt, also, that, especially for thirty years back, they desire to be humane; they descant among themselves about the rights of man; the sight of the pale face of a hungry peasant would give them pain.