If there was in France, as in other countries there visibly is,
a great abatement rather than any increase of these vices, instead
of loading the present clergy with the crimes of other men and the
odious character of other times, in common equity they ought to be
praised, encouraged, and supported in their departure from a spirit
which disgraced their predecessors, and for having assumed a temper of
mind and manners more suitable to their sacred function.
When my occasions took me into France, toward the close of the
late reign, the clergy, under all their forms, engaged a
considerable part of my curiosity. So far from finding (except from
one set of men, not then very numerous, though very active) the
complaints and discontents against that body, which some
publications had given me reason to expect, I perceived little or no
public or private uneasiness on their account. On further examination,
I found the clergy, in general, persons of moderate minds and decorous
manners; I include the seculars and the regulars of both sexes. I
had not the good fortune to know a great many of the parochial clergy,
but in general I received a perfectly good account of their morals and
of their attention to their duties. With some of the higher clergy I
had a personal acquaintance, and of the rest in that class a very good
means of information. They were, almost all of them, persons of
noble birth.
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