At a later period the contributions of the clergy were increased, and during the reign of Louis IX (1235–70) thirteen subsidies are recorded within twenty-eight years.
After lengthy discussions, the clergy assembled at Melun (1579–80) consented to renew the contract for ten years, a measure destined to be repeated every decade until the French Revolution.
Theoretically, parish priests (curés) might be chosen, but as a matter of fact, by reason of their social station, inferior to that of abbés and canons, they seldom had seats in the assemblies.
The rank of subdeacon suffices for election; the Abbé Legendre relates in his memoirs as a contemporary incident that one of these young legislators, after an escapade, was soundly flogged by his perceptor who had accompanied him to Paris.
Beginning with the seventeenth century, the payment of the rentes of the Hôtel de Ville was an item of slight importance as compared with the sums which the Clergy were compelled to vote the king under the name of dons gratuits, or free gifts.
It had been established during the Middle Ages that the Church should contribute not only to the expenses of the Crusades, but also towards the defence of the kingdom, a tradition continued to modern times.
The French kings more than once expressed their gratitude to this body for the services it had rendered both monarchy and fatherland in the prompt and generous payment of large subsidies at critical moments.
It has been calculated from official documents that during three-quarters of a century (1715-89) the Clergy paid in, either for the rentes of the Hotel de Ville or as "free gifts", over 380 million livres.
When, in 1789, an attempt was made at imposing on the Church of France an equal share of the public expense, the Archbishop of Paris, Monseigneur de Juign', was able to say that the Church already contributed as much as the other orders (nobility, bourgeoisie, and people); its burdens would not be increased by the new law that imposed upon all an equal share in contributing to the expenses of the State.
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.
Their credit stood highest; the archives have preserved for us many thousands of rental contracts made in confidence by private individuals with the Church.
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.
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.
Four Articles were voted on by the Assembly of 1682, convened to consider the régale, a term denoting the right assumed by the French king during the vacancy of a see to appropriate its revenues and make appointments to benefices.
When Louis XIV asked the Assembly to pronounce upon the authority of the pope, Bossuet tried to temporize and requested that, before proceeding further, Christian tradition on this point be carefully studied.
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.
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.
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.