It is certain that for the last
fifty years, wealth, education, and talent have shared the rights
formerly belonging to birth alone. Rome has seen foreigners arriving
in travelling carriages who were not born great,--distinguished
artists, eminent writers, diplomatists sprung from the people,
tradesmen elevated to the rank of capitalists, men of the world who
are in their place everywhere, because everywhere they know how to
live. The best society did not receive them without submitting them to
careful inquiry, in order to ascertain that they brought no dangerous
doctrines; and then it seemed to say to them: "You cannot be our
relations--be our masonic brothers!"
I have said that the Roman princes are, if not without pride, at least
without arrogance. This observation extends to the princes of the
Church. They welcome a foreigner of modest condition, provided he
speaks and thinks like themselves upon two or three capital questions,
has a profound veneration for certain time-honoured lumber, and curses
heartly certain innovations. You must show them the white paw of the
fable, if you wish them to open their doors to you.
On this point they are immovable. They will not listen to rank, to
fortune, or even to the most imperious political necessities. If
France were to send them an ambassador who failed to show them the
white paw, the ambassador of France would not get inside the doors of
the aristocratic _salons_. If Horace Vernet were named director of the
Academy, neither his name nor his office would open to him certain
houses where he was received as a friend previously to 1830.
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