Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice older book in good condition. Pages in good condition. Some tanning and marking due to age. Page faces are very good and bright. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> IN 1780 the Assembly of the Clergy gathered in Paris for one of its meetings that took place every five years. During these meetings the delegates of the First Estate discussed their affairs and if there was occasion voted a universal voluntary contribution to the royal treas ury as a free gift. Before disbanding for five years the Assembly elected two general agents who were given the extremely important mission of representing the French clergy before the king and His Majesty’s government in the courts of intercession. The order of the day in 1780 called for the reading of a memoran- dum taken from the deliberations of 1775 about the immunity which once was always granted to ecclesiastical property but which had been constantly disputed for the past thirty years by the king’s ministers when short of money. This memorandum read at one of the sittings firmly maintained the inviolability of the financial privileges of the clergy and of course was favorably received. Its author was a recently ordained twenty-six-year-old priest a delegate from the diocese of Rheims who was already attracting the attention of the assembly for a variety of reasons. Despite his lameness and his irregular features he made a fine appearance and moreover bore an illustrious name: the Abb? Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-P?rigord. His glance more penetrating than lively shadowed by heavy eyelids and thick lashes revealed a wide-awake intelligence. His snub nose with its flaring nostrils and his mouth with its rather ironic lips gave an impertinent air to his rosy little face which had a rather dandified air beneath his elaborately curled and heavily powdered hair. There was no timidity in his demeanor-clearly a young lord who would be at ease everywhere. (SP)