one could pay money, get change, and receive a piece of paper with which one got remission of sin. The price is stipulated and there is no indulgence without "alms." That sounds like a sale.

Like most public figures during the post-Revolutionary Royalist reaction, Champollion was compelled to keep his religious opinions discreet.

30,000 pilgrims arrived daily, and one of them says, "day and night two clerics stood at the altar of St. Peter with rakes and drew off the infinite sums of money."