‎(POMMEREUL, F.R.J. DE.)‎
‎Étrennes au clergé de France pour l'année 1788.‎

‎No place, 1788. 27, (1) pp. 8vo. Modern half morocco, gilt lettering to spine. Conlon 88:3822; not in Kress; not in Goldsmiths; not in Einaudi; not in INED; Barbier, ii, 307 (for the 1786 edition). First edition. Pommereul had published his first "Etrennes" in 1786: this is not a second edition, but a new survey of the wealth of the church and again a protest against the fact that the church has acquired extreme wealth, receives public money as well and is hardly being taxed. Caption title on the first page reads: Explication d'un des plus grands mystères de l'Église. The 'mystère' is the wealth of the clergy, of which the author supplies details. He points out how little taxes the clergy is actually paying, even worse: the church has not only acquired an enormous wealth, whether possession or revenues, within the kingdom, which the author estimates at a third of the total annual income of France !, the church also receives an large annual sum of money from the state, and concludes by wondering what we should admire most: the ability of the church to acquire this richness, to maintain this richness while at the same time receiving annual money from the state, or the apathy of the administration which fails to bring this class under a new regime and properly tax the church: it is clear that this survey has as its aim to arrive at a better re-distribution of the clergy's wealth. The author was close in his thinking to Holbach and Helvetius. INED lists three works by Pommereul, but not this one. ‎

Reference : 15963

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