He wanted to unite in one person two incompatible characters, to convert the dignitaries of the Church into dignitaries of the State, to make functionaries out of potentates.
The functionary insensibly disappeared; the potentate alone subsisted and still subsists.
At the present day, conformably to the statute of 1802, the cathedral chapter,[5233] except in case of one interim, is a lifeless and still-born body, a vain simulachre; it is always, by title or on paper, the Catholic "senate," the bishop's obligatory "council";[5234] but he takes his councillors where he pleases, outside of the chapter, if that suits him, and he is free not to take any of them, "to govern alone, to do all himself." It is he who appoints to all offices, to the five or six hundred offices of his diocese; he is the universal collator of these and, nine times out of ten, the sole collator; excepting eight or nine canonships and the thirty or forty cantonal curacies, which the government must approve, he alone makes appointments and without any person's concurrence.

Thus, in the way of favors, his clerical body has nothing to expect from anybody but himself .-- And, on the other hand, they no longer enjoy any protection against his harshness; the hand which punishes is still less restrained than that which rewards; like the cathedral chapter, the ecclesiastical tribunal has lost its consistency and independence, its efficiency; nothing remains of the ancient bishop's court but an appearance and a name.[5235] At one time, the bishop in person is himself the whole court; he deliberates only with himself and decides ex informata conscientia without a trial, without advice, and, if he chooses, in his own cabinet with closed doors, in private according to facts, the value of which he alone estimates, and through motives of which he is the sole appreciator.

At another time, the presiding magistrate is one of his grand-vicars, his revocable delegate, his confidential man, his megaphone, in short, another self, and this official acts without the restraint of ancient regulations, of a fixed and understood procedure beforehand, of a series of judicial formalities, of verifications and the presence of witnesses, of the delays and all other legal precautions which guard the judge against prejudice, haste, error, and ignorance and without which justice always risks becoming injustice.

In both cases, the head over which the sentence is suspended lacks guarantees, and, once pronounced, this sentence is definitive.

For, on appeal to the court of the metropolitan bishop, it is always confirmed;[5236] the bishops support each other, and, let the appellant be right or wrong, the appeal is in itself a bad mark against him: he did not submit at once, he stood out against reproof, he was lacking in humility, he has set an example of insubordination, and this alone is a grave fault.
There remains the recourse to Rome; but Rome is far off,[5237] and, while maintaining her superior jurisdiction, she does not willingly cancel an episcopal verdict; she treats prelates with respect, she is careful of her lieutenant-generals, her collectors of Saint Peter's pence.