But the ecclesiastical caste, which sets this fatal principle of
temporal power above the highest interests of society, can conceive
nothing more prudent or efficacious than to vilify and abuse the
middle class. It obliges this class to support the heaviest share of
the budget, without being admitted to a share in the benefits. It
takes from the small proprietor not only his whole income, but a part
of his capital, while the people and the nobility are allowed all
sorts of immunities. It demands heavy concessions in exchange for the
humblest official posts. It omits no opportunity of depriving the
liberal professions of all the importance they enjoy in other
countries. It does its best to accelerate the decline of science and
art. It imagines that nothing else can be abased, without its being
proportionately elevated.
This system has succeeded (according to priestly notions) tolerably
well at Home and in the Mediterranean provinces, but very badly at
Bologna, and in the Apennine provinces. In the metropolis of the
country the middle class is reduced, impoverished, and submissive; in
the second capital it is much more numerous, wealthy, and independent.
But evil passions, far more fatal to society than the rational
resistance of parties, have progressed in an inverse direction. They
predominate but little at Bologna, where the middle class is strong
enough to keep them under; they triumph at Home, where the middle
class has been destroyed.
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