The Gospel has omitted to consecrate the inequality of men,
but the law of the State--that is to say, the will of the
Popes--carefully maintains it. Benedict XIV. declared it honourable
and salutary in his Bull of January 4, 1746, and Pius IX. expressed
himself in the same terms at the beginning of his _Chirografo_ of May
2, 1853.
If I do not reckon the clergy among the classes of society, it is
because that body is foreign to the nation by its interests, by its
privileges, and often by its origin. The Cardinals and Prelates are
not, properly speaking, the Pope's subjects, but rather his ghostly
confederates, and the partners of his omnipotence.
The distinction of class is more especially perceptible at Rome, near
the Pontifical throne. It gradually disappears, together with many
other abuses, in proportion to their distance from their source. There
are bottomless abysses between the noble Roman and the citizen of
Rome, between the citizen of Rome and the plebeian of the city. The
plebeian himself discharges a portion of the scorn expressed by the
two superior classes for himself, upon the peasants he meets at
market: it is a sort of cascade of contempt. At Rome, thanks to the
traditions of history, and the education given by the Popes, the
inferior thinks he can get out of his nothingness, and become
something, by begging the favour and support of a superior. A general
system of dependence and patronage makes the plebeian kneel before the
man of the middle class, who again kneels before the prince, who in
his turn kneels more humbly than all the others before the sovereign
clergy.
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