In short, his salary and his comfort were about those of a rural vicar or of a suitably paid curate.
Higher education (education secondaire) was provided for in the same manner, and still better by local and private enterprise.

More than one hundred and eight establishments furnished it completely, and more than four hundred and fifty-four partially.[3157] Like the others, and not less liberally than the smaller schools, these were supported by endowments, some of which were very ample and even magnificent; a certain upper school in the provinces, Rodez,[3158] possessed twenty-seven thousand livres income, and one in Paris, Louis-le-Grand, an income of four hundred and fifty thousand livres, each of these, large or small, having its own distinct endowment, in real property, lands and houses, and in revenues on privileges derived from the hotel-de-ville, the octroi and from transportation lines .-- And, in each of them, the scholarships, or half-scholarships, were numerous-six hundred alone in Louis-le-Grand.

In total, out of the seventy-two thousand scholars in the kingdom, there were forty thousand for whom a high-school education was gratuitous or half-gratuitous; nowadays, it is less than five thousand out of seventy-nine thousand.[3159] The reason why is that, before 1789, the revenues were not only large, but the expenses were small.

The salary of a head-master, teacher, or assistant-teacher was not large, say four hundred and fifty, six hundred, nine hundred, or twelve hundred livres per annum at most, just enough for a single man to live on; in effect, most of the teachers were priests or monks, Benedictines, regular canons, Oratorians, the latter alone officiating in thirty colleges.

Not subject to the expenses and necessities which a family imposes, they were abstemious through piety, or at least through discipline, habit, and respect for persons; frequently, the statutes of the school obliged them to live in common,[3160] which was much cheaper than living apart .-- The same economical accord is found with all the wheels, in the arrangement and working of the entire system.