To be admitted, you must either be a gentleman or Doctor of Sorbonne.

If there is a pardonable pride, after that derived from personal merit, it is doubtless that arising from birth, though, in general, priests having laymen in their service treat them with sufficient haughtiness, and thus the canons behaved to poor Le Maitre.

The chanter, in particular, who was called the Abbe de Vidonne, in other respects a well-behaved man, but too full of his nobility, did not always show him the attention his talents merited.

M.le Maitre could not bear these indignities patiently; and this year, during passion week, they had a more serious dispute than ordinary.

At an institution dinner that the bishop gave the canons, and to which M.Maitre was always invited, the abbe failed in some formality, adding, at the same time, some harsh words, which the other could not digest; he instantly formed the resolution to quit them the following night; nor could any consideration make him give up his design, though Madam de Warrens (whom he went to take leave of) spared no pains to appease him.