Administration
The Assemblies of the Clergy conducted their temporal administration carefully. They appointed for ten years a receiver-general (Receveur-général), in reality a minister of finance. The office carried with it a generous salary, and for election to it a two-thirds majority was required. He was bound to furnish security at his residence in Paris and render a detailed account of his management to the assembled Clergy. In each diocese there was a board of elected delegates presided over by the bishop, whose duty it was to apportion the assessments among the beneficed ecclesiastics. This Bureau diocésain de décimes (Diocesan Board of Tithes) was authorized to settle ordinary disputes. Over it were superior boards located at Paris, Lyon, Rouen, Tours, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Aix, and Bourges, courts of appeal, whose decisions were final in all disputes concerning the contributions of the dioceses within their jurisdiction.
In this way the Clergy had an administration of their own independent of the State, a very important privilege under the old regime. Their credit stood highest; the archives have preserved for us many thousands of rental contracts made in confidence by private individuals with the Church.
It has been said that M. de VillŠle introduced into France the conversion of annuities and the consequent reduction of interest; as a matter of fact this was practised by the Clergy from the end of the seventeenth century when they were forced to negotiate loans in order to furnish the sums demanded by Louis XIV. Necker, a competent judge, commended the Clergy for the care they took in liquidating these debts. He also praised the clerical system of the distribution of taxes, according to which the beneficed ecclesiastics throughout the kingdom were divided into eight départements, or classes, in order to facilitate the apportionment of taxes in ascending ratio, according to the resources of each. This shows that even under the old regime the Clergy had placed on a practical working basis, in their own system of revenues the impôt progressif or system of graduated assessment of income.
On the verge of the Revolution, they accepted the principle that the public burden should be equally divided among all classes of the nation, a step they had delayed too long. Public opinion had already condemned all privileges whatsoever.
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