Fifty years ago we used to do the same
thing; we now think it better to work!"
CHAPTER VI.
THE MIDDLE CLASSES.
The middle class is, in every clime and every age, the foundation of
the strength of States. It represents not only the wealth and
independence, but the capacity and the morality of a people. Between
the aristocracy, which boasts of doing nothing, and the lower orders
who only work that they may not die of hunger, the middle class
advances boldly to a future of wealth and consideration. Sometimes the
upper class is hostile to progress, through fear of its results; too
often the lower class is indifferent to it, from ignorance of the
benefits it confers. The middle class has never ceased to tend towards
progress, with all its strength, by an irresistible impulse, and even
at the peril of its dearest interests. A great statesman who must be
judged by his doctrines, and not by the chance of circumstances, M.
Guizot, has shown us that the Roman Empire perished from the want of a
middle class in the fifth century of our era, and we ourselves know
with what impetuosity France has advanced in progress since the middle
class revolution of 1789.
The middle class has not only the privilege of bringing about useful
revolutions, it also claims the honour of repressing popular
outbreaks, and opposing itself as a barrier to the overflow of evil
passions.
It is to be desired, then, that this honourable class should become as
numerous and as powerful as possible in the country we are now
studying; because, while on the one hand it is the lawful heir of the
temporal power of the Popes, on the other, it is the natural adversary
of Mazzinist insurrection.
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