XVII. The pope has no power, for any cause whatsoever, to dispense with the law of God, the law of nature, or the decrees of the ancient canons.
XVIII. The regulations of the apostolic chamber, or court, are not obligatory to the Gallican Church, unless confirmed by the king’s edicts.
XIX. If the primates or metropolitans appeal to the pope, his Holiness is obliged to try the cause, by commissioners or delegates, in the same diocese from which the appeal was made.
XX. When a Frenchman desires the pope to give him a benefice lying in France, his Holiness is obliged to order him an instrument, sealed under the faculty of his office; and, in case of refusal, it is lawful for the person pretending to the benefice to apply to the parliament of Paris, which court shall send instructions to the bishop of the diocese to give him institution, which institution shall be of the same validity as if he had received his title under the seals of the court of Rome.
XXI. No mandates from the pope, enjoining a bishop, or other collator, to present any person to a benefice upon a vacancy, are admitted in France.
XXII. It is only by sufferance that the pope has what they call a right of prevention, to collate to benefices which the ordinary has not disposed of.
XXIII. It is not lawful for the pope to exempt the ordinary of any monastery, or any other ecclesiastical corporation, from the jurisdiction of their respective diocesans, in order to make the person so exempted immediately dependent on the holy see.
These liberties were esteemed inviolable, and the French kings, at their coronation, solemnly swore to preserve and maintain them. The oath ran thus: “Promitto vobis et perdono quod unicuique de vobis et ecclesiis vobis commissis canonicum privilegium et debitam legem atque justitiam servabo.”
The bishoprics were entirely in the hands of the Crown. There were, in France, 18 archbishops, 112 bishops, 160,000 clergymen of various orders, and 3400 convents.
The archbishops were: 1. Rheims, (primate of France,) eight suffragans. 2. Lyons, (primate of Gaul,) five suffragans. 3. Rouen, (primate of Normandy,) six suffragans. 4. Paris, four suffragans. 5. Sens, three suffragans. 6. Tours, eleven suffragans. 7. Bordeaux, nine suffragans. 8. Bourges, five suffragans. 9. Toulouse, seven suffragans. 10. Narbonne, eleven suffragans. 11. Besançon, one suffragan. 12. Arles, four suffragans. 13. Auch, ten suffragans. 14. Aix, five suffragans. 15. Alby, five suffragans. 16. Embrun, six suffragans. 17. Vienne, four suffragans. 18. Cambray, two suffragans, with six other bishops under foreign archbishops. The archbishop of Cambray and his suffragans, and the archbishop of Besançon with his suffragan, and eight other bishops, were not considered properly to form part of the Gallican Church.