Another strong attempt has been made in France to exempt
'candidates for the priesthood Trom the conscription. The Bishops declare that three years of barrack life will ruin their students for the work of the priesthood, and are privately also afraid that if the great temptation of exemption is withdrawn, the numbers offering themselves to be ordained will be insufficient. The Clergy are badly paid, opinion requires them to be ascetic, the peasants no longer urge the career on their sons, and already it is most difficult to keep up the necessary numbers, and hundreds of ..curacies are unfilled. The Bishop of Angers—the only Prelate in the Chamber—offered, therefore, to bind the students ex- empted to enter the priesthood before they were twenty-six years old—a great concession, as it would almost compel the Bishops to ordain the candidates, whatever their qualifications. The Chamber, however, did not care whether there were priests enough or not, and only remarking that soldiers had become Popes, refused the exemption by 386 to 91, a vote of more than four to one.
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