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    at the remaining prejudices ' of the French people , and tended much to strengthen the opinion which about that time began generally to be entertained , that the sanctity and rights of the Church were coincident with its power , and that both the former would be deemed mere usurpation , so soon as the latter should become unequal to their defence . It had not been forgotten , it seems , that , when as early as the year 554 , king Clotaire claimed one-third of the revenues of the Church , and issued his edict for the payment thereof to himself , Injuriosus , then Archbishop

    of Tours , firmly as well as successfully resisted the demand on the ground that the wealth of the Church is the property of the poor . " * Other instances also were not forgotten , proving that both kings and prelates set little store by Ct the rights of the Church , " when they interfered with the gratification of their own personal interests , aggrandizement ^ or licentious appetites . Thus in the year 1166 , Louis VII ., instigated by the Archbishop of Tours , had sacrilegiously seized on the money raised in the

    province of Maine for carrying on the crusade , which had been deposited for safety in the sanctuary of the Church of St . Maurice . Henry II . of England , ( add the French historians , ) having entertained the same righteous intention , enraged at being forestalled in his act of villany , drove the archbishop from his see by force of arms , and made war on Louis , in which many persons perished on both sides , and the cathedral and part of the city of Tours fell a prey to the flames ! But although Marmoutier ceased to have an independent jurisdiction , it ceased not to be a monastery of high repute amongst the self-called religious of the

    day ; yet the perversion or its vast income into another and not less impure channel tended still further to open the eyes of the people to the enormous abuses of that system of fraud and oppression , the yoke of which they had for some time felt to be a galling one . Strong as their prejudices , and deep-rooted as their superstition might be , numbers could not avoid seeing that what would have been deemed and punished as blasphemy and sacrilege in others , kings and churchmen practised with impunity , t Shorn of its honours , and plundered of its immense

    wealth , Marmoutier , in a state of degradation and dependance , lost much of its hold on the prejudices , as it had probably before done on the affections of the people ; whilst the Archbishopric of Tours sunk more in reputation by its covetousness , than was compensated by this enormous acquisition of wealth ; and in point of fact , though tens of thousands of converts made to

    Protes-* Tablette Chronologique—The members of the council general of the Gironde , in 1831 , seem to have been of the same opinion , for they voted the continuance of the salary to the Archbishop of Bourdeaux , " because he gave all this part of his income to the poor , ' f About this time thje most atrocious murder of Grand ier by that elder son of the Church , Cardinal Richlieu , of which more hereafter , excited a strong feeling in Touraine and Poitu .

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    * $% & Ndtides of France .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1832, page 732, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1824/page/12/