Six hundred and fifty thousand francs for fifty bishops and ten archbishops, a little more than four million francs for the three or four thousand cantonal cures, in all five million francs per annum, is all that the State promises to the new clergy.

Later on,[31109] he takes it on himself to pay those who officiate in the branch chapels; nevertheless, in 1807, the entire appropriation for public worship costs the State only twelve million francs a year;[31110] the rest, as a rule, and especially the salaries of the forty thousand assistant-priests and vicars, must be provided by the fabriques and the communes.[31111] Let the clergy benefit by occasional contributions;[31112] let it appeal to the piety of believers for its monstrances, chalices, albs and chasubles, for decorations and the other expenses of worship; they are not prohibited from being liberal to it, not only during the services, on making collections, but in their houses, within closed doors, from hand to hand.

Moreover, they have the right of making gifts or bequests before a notary, of establishing foundations in favor of seminaries and churches; the foundation, after verification and approval by the Council of State, becomes operative; only,[31113] it must consist of state securities, because, in this shape, it helps maintain their value and the credit of the government; in no case must it be composed of real estate;[31114] should the clergy become land-owners it would enjoy too much local influence.

No bishop, no cure must feel himself independent; he must be and always remain a mere functionary, a hired workman for whom the State provides work in a shop with a roof overhead, a suitable and indispensable atelier, in other words, the house of prayer well known in each parish as "one of the edifices formerly assigned to worship." This edifice is not restored to the Christian community, nor to its representatives; it is simply "placed at the disposition of the bishop."[31115] The State retains the ownership of it, or transfers this to the communes; it concedes to the clergy merely the right of using it, and, in that, loses but little.

Parish and cathedral churches in its hands are, for the most part, dead capital, nearly useless and almost valueless; through their structure, they are not fitted for civil offices; it does not know what to do with them except to make barns of them; if it sells them it is to demolishers for their value as building material, and then at great scandal.