These are the court nobles, who live within reach of favors, brought up from infancy to ask for them, to obtain and to ask again, solely attentive to royal condescension and frowns, for whom the OEil de boeuf[1406] forms the universe.

They are as "indifferent to the affairs of the State as to their own affairs, allowing one to be governed by provincial intendants as they allowed he other to be governed by their own intendants." Let us contemplate them at work on the budget.

We know how large that of the church is; I estimate that they absorb at east one-half of it.
Nineteen chapters of male nobles, twenty-five chapters of female nobles, two hundred and sixty commanderies of Malta belong to them by institution.

They occupy, by favor, all the archbishoprics, and, except five, all the bishoprics.[1407] They furnish three out of four abbes-commendatory and vicars-general.

If, among the abbeys of females royally nominated, we set apart those bringing in twenty thousand livres and more, we find that they all have ladies of rank for abbesses.