Agents-General
To lend unity to the action of the Assemblies, and to preserve their influence during the long intervals between these meetings, two ecclesiastics were elected who were thenceforth, as it were, the executive power of the Church of France. They were known as Agents-General (agents-généraux) and were very important personages under the old regime. Although chosen from among the Clergy of the second order, i.e. from among the priests, they were always men of good birth, distinguished bearing, and quite familiar with the ways of the world and the court. They had charge of the accounts of all receivers, protected jealously all rights of the Church, drew attention to whatever was prejudicial to her prerogatives of discipline, and in the parliament represented the ecclesiastical authority and interest in all cases to which the Church was a party. They enjoyed the privilege of committimus, and were specially authorized to enter the king's council and speak before it on ecclesiastical matters. On the occasion of each Assembly these agents rendered an account of their administration in reports, several folio volumes of which have been published since the beginning of the eighteenth century under the title of: Rapports d'agence. The usual reward for their services was the episcopate. Their duties prepared them admirably to understand public affairs. Monseigneur de Cicé, Monseigneur de La Luzerne, the Abbé de Montesquiou, and Talleyrand, all of whom played important roles in the Constituent Assembly, had been in their time Agents General of the Clergy.
Read more about this topic: Assembly Of The French Clergy