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A fine lesson this for the most powerful princes, and calculated to teach them that if they want to be served by Rome they should favour those that are there, instead of raising their own subjects, who, out of Rome, can be of no service to the State; and who are good only to seize three or four hundred thousand livres a year in benefices, with the quarter of which an Italian would be more than recompensed.
The Kirk was to be organised by the "Sixty Bishops," the survivors of the ministers ejected in 1663. The benefices of ejected Episcopalian conformists were declared to be vacant. Lay patronage was annulled: the congregations had the right to approve or disapprove of presentees. The Covenant was silently dropped.
He came to pay me a visit, and ask me if I could get an abbey for his nephew, who, though extremely young, already acted as vicar-general for him. "I would willingly get him a whole regiment," I replied, "provided M. de Louvois be of those that are my friends. As for the benefices, they depend, as you know, upon the Pere de la Chaise, and I don't think he would be willing to grant me a favour."
The cross, which was commonly sewed on the garment, in cloth or silk, was inscribed by some zealots on their skin: a hot iron, or indelible liquor, was applied to perpetuate the mark; and a crafty monk, who showed the miraculous impression on his breast was repaid with the popular veneration and the richest benefices of Palestine.
Those concerning the government of the church, and the right of conferring ecclesiastical benefices, were perhaps the most interesting to the peace and welfare of civil society.
Moreover, the Reservatum Ecclesiasticum was a disputed article of the treaty of Augsburg; and all the German Protestants were aware of the extreme importance of wresting this fourth* electorate from the opponents of their faith. The example had already been set in several of the ecclesiastical benefices of Lower Germany, and attended with success.
The pope likewise "reserved" to himself the right of naming the holders of certain benefices: these he gave preferably to Italians who drew the revenues but remained in their own country; the people thus supported foreign prelates in luxury and sometimes paid a second time in order to maintain resident ecclesiastics. Fat fees for dispensations or for court trials found their way across the Alps.
He was, however, artful enough to convince his Sovereign of the propriety of having his grand almoner by his side; and he is, therefore, obliged to this intrigue of his enemies that he now disposes of the benefices in the Kingdom of Italy, as well as those of the French Empire.
He had consorted with heretics during a large portion of his life, and had put many suspicious persons into office. As to his nepotism, simony, and fraud, there was no doubt at all. He had richly provided all his friends and relations in Friesland with benefices.
He therefore strove to oblige me in every way he could think of, and, to fulfil the promise made by the Queen my mother at the Peace of Sens, he gave me an assignment of my portion in territory, with the power of nomination to all vacant benefices and all offices; and, over and above the customary pension to the daughters of France, he gave another out of his privy purse.
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