kind of prelate who helped to make life agreeable for those who were prosperous, and still more intolerable to those who were at the other end of the social scale:
"The bishopric of Le Mans was one of those most coveted. Its revenues were considerable; the episcopal palace was a very fine one, which had, as a dependency, a charming country seat about one league distant from the town. This seat had for some time been occupied by prelates of high birth, grave men who scrupulously fulfilled the duties of their holy ministry. Upon its becoming vacant in the last years of the reign of Louis XV., it was given to the Abbé Grimaldi, a young ecclesiastic, the scion of a great house, distinguished by his agreeable personality, his intellect, and his remarkably graceful manner. A very pleasant companion, he showed himself capable of a devoted friendship to those whom he honoured by selecting as his friends, and he proved his judgment by the choice of the vicars-general with whom he surrounded himself. They were, generally speaking, younger sons whom fortune had not favoured much, and who had entered the Church merely as a way to a happier condition of affairs. While on terms of friendship with them during the years he spent at the Seminary of Saint-Sulpice, he had promised to summon them to his side as soon as he should be a bishop. He made good his promise,
