4170 ([return])
[ Morellet, "Mémoires," I., 8, 31. The Sorbonne, founded by Robert Sorbon, confessor to St. Louis, was an association resembling one of the Oxford or Cambridge colleges, that is to say, a corporation possessing a building, revenues, rules, regulations and boarders; its object was to afford instruction in the theological sciences; its titular members, numbering about a hundred, were mostly bishops, vicars-general, canons, curés in Paris and in the principal towns. Men of distinction were prepared in it at the expense of the Church.—The examinations for the doctorate were the tentative, the mineure, the Sorbonique and the majeure. A talent for discussion and argument was particularly developed.—Cf. Ernest Renan, "Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse," p.279, (on St. Sulpice and the study of Theology).]
4171 ([return])
[ Cf. the files of the clergy in the States-General, and the reports of ecclesiastics in the provincial assemblies.]
4172 ([return])
[ "The Revolution," p.72. (Ed. Lafont I, p 223 etc.)]
4173 ([return])
[ In some dioceses, notably that of Besançon, the rural parishes were served by distinguished men. (Sauzay, I., 16.) "It was not surprising to encounter a man of European reputation, like Bergier, so long curé of Flangebouche; an astronomer of great merit, like M. Mongin, curé of la Grand Combe des Bois, whose works occupy an honorable place in Lalande's bibliography, all passing their lives in the midst of peasants. At Rochejean, a priest of great intelligence and fine feeling, M. Boillon, a distinguished naturalist, had converted his house into a museum of natural history as well as into an excellent school.... It was not rare to find priests belonging to the highest social circles, like MM. de Trevillers, of Trevillers, Balard de Bonnevaux of Bonétage, de Mesmay of Mesmay, du Bouvot, at Osselle, cheerfully burying themselves in the depths of the country, some on their family estates, and, not content to share their income with their poor parishioners, but on dying, leaving them a large part of their fortunes.">[
4174 ([return])
[ De Tocqueville, "L'Ancien Regime," 134, 137.]