The things we do!

-- But if, in the original institution, several
accessory and special clauses have become antiquated, there remains
the one important, general intention, which manifestly continues
imperative and permanent, that of providing for a distinct service,
either of charity, of worship, or of instruction. Let the
administrators be changed, if necessary, also the apportionment of
the legacy bequeathed, but do not divert any of it to services of an
alien character; it is inapplicable to any but that purpose or to
others strictly analogous. The four milliards of investment in real
property, the two hundred millions of ecclesiastical income, form
for it an express and special endowment. This is not a pile of gold
abandoned on the highway, which the exchequer can appropriate or
assign to those who live by the roadside. Authentic titles to it
exist, which, declaring its origin, fix its destination, and your
business is simply to see that it reaches its destination. Such was
the principle under the ancient r?gime, in spite of grave abuses,
and under forced exactions.


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