I Think There Are Ten Convents And Three Nunneries
Within And Without The Walls Of Nice; And Among Them All, I Never
Could Hear Of One Man Who Had Made Any Tolerable Advances In Any
Kind Of Human Learning.
All ecclesiastics are exempted from any
exertion of civil power, being under the immediate protection and
authority of the bishop, or his vicar.
The bishop of Nice is
suffragan of the archbishop of Ambrun in France; and the revenues
of the see amount to between five and six hundred pounds
sterling. We have likewise an office of the inquisition, though I
do not hear that it presumes to execute any acts of jurisdiction,
without the king's special permission. All the churches are
sanctuaries for all kinds of criminals, except those guilty of
high treason; and the priests are extremely jealous of their
privileges in this particular. They receive, with open arms,
murderers, robbers, smugglers, fraudulent bankrupts, and felons
of every denomination; and never give them up, until after
having stipulated for their lives and liberty. I need not enlarge
upon the pernicious consequences of this infamous prerogative,
calculated to raise and extend the power and influence of the
Roman church, on the ruins of morality and good order. I saw a
fellow, who had three days before murdered his wife in the last
month of pregnancy, taking the air with great composure and
serenity, on the steps of a church in Florence; and nothing is
more common, than to see the most execrable villains diverting
themselves in the cloysters of some convents at Rome.
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