And yet France is far from being poor. Sober, industrious, and economical, her treasury is rich in spite of the enormous war-tribute by which it was partly diminished of late. That diminution was, by comparison, insignificant. Surely, with all the sources of wealth which France has at command, there must be amply sufficient to pay, at a rate commensurate with their services and due requirements, men who have never bargained for their trouble, but who now, under the continuance of the actual condition of things, will find it impossible to live.
This is a question demanding prompt attention, unless the anomaly is to be maintained that France is a country of great actual and possible wealth, in which the élite of the nation are more and more exposed to the danger of dying of hunger.
The writer on whose words, verified by our own observations, we have based our remarks says that from all quarters he receives letters of which the following extract is a sample: “What you have stated is far short of the truth. Could you lift the veil that conceals our misery, you would see into what a gulf of distress we have been plunged by years of indifference to our needs. From time to time we make earnest representations of our case, but these, as well as the proofs we give of the hard reality of our necessities and expenses, are year after year treated with the same passive disregard; and there are very many amongst us who, in spite of the most rigid economy, will never be able to recover themselves.”
In case our remarks should seem to have too general a character, or to be in any way exaggerated, we will give an example—namely, the parochial clergy, the men who are unweariedly denounced by the radical-republicans as “pillagers of the budget” and “robbers of the state.”
The ordinary income of one of the more opulent among the rural parish priests (by far the larger proportion receive less—some much less) is as follows:
| Indemnity of the government for each quarter, paid three weeks or more after time = 225 francs, equalling per annum the sum of | 900 frs. |
| Indemnity of the commune | 100 frs. |
| Casual receipts | 60 frs |
| (Say, 40) Low Masses | 60 frs |
| ——- | |
| Forming a total of | 1,120 frs |
Then, as the sum of obligatory expenses, we have the following:
| Wages of servant | 240 frs. |
| Door and window tax | 53 frs. |
| Prestation, or taking of oaths | 5 frs. |
| Tax for dog | 8 frs. |
| For the Fund for Infirm Priests, as the only means of securing a morsel of bread if disabled | 10 frs. |
| ___ | |
| Total | 316 frs. |
There remains, therefore, for this parish priest to live upon an average income of 804 francs—i.e., about $160. He is not even “passing rich” on the traditionary “forty pounds a year.”
With these eight hundred and four francs he must meet all expenses, keep open the hospitable door of the presbytery—the house so readily found, so close by the church, and so accessible; the house which receives the first visit of the poor, the outcast, and the wanderer, and whose occupant, thus poor himself, has neither the wish nor the right to close against any one the way to his fireside. Two francs and four sous a day, however, are the magnificent sum allowed for the inmates of this presbytery and for all the needy, who, regarding it as their natural home, go straight to the kitchen, not knowing what it is to be sent away empty.