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While a Cardinal de Rohan with
2,500,000 livres a year astonished the court of France with his
magnificence and luxury, many a shabby but faithful country curate,
with an uncertain income of less than $150 a year, was doing his best
to make both ends meet, with a little to spare for charity.

RELIGIOUS AND ECCLESIASTICAL CONDITIONS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
[Sidenote: The Catholic Church]
The great ecclesiastical organization that had dominated the middle
ages was no longer the one church of Europe, but was still the most
impressive. Although the Protestant Revolt of the sixteenth century had
established independent denominations in the countries of northern
Europe, as we have seen in Chapter IV, Roman Catholic Christianity
remained the state religion of Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Austria,
the Austrian Netherlands, Bavaria, Poland, and several of the Swiss
Cantons. Moreover, large sections of the population of Ireland,
Bohemia, Hungary, Asia, and America professed Catholic Christianity.


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