I who tell you this have been here many years, and am
quite comfortable and contented. Whither should I go if Rome
were to be turned topsy-turvy? Where should we establish our
dethroned sovereigns? Where would a home be found for Roman
Catholic worship? You have no doubt been told that some
people are dissatisfied with the administration: but what of
that? They are not of _our_ world. You never meet them in
the good society you frequent. If the demands of the middle
class were to be complied with, everything would be
overturned. Have you any wish to see manufactories erected
round St. Peter's and turnip fields about the fountain of
Egeria? These native shopkeepers seem to imagine the country
belongs to them because they happen to be born in it. Can
one conceive a more ridiculous pretension? Let them know
that Rome is the property in copartnership of people of
birth, of people of taste, and of artists. It is a museum
confided to the guardianship of the Holy Father; a museum of
old monuments, old pictures, and old institutions. Let all
the rest of the world change, but build me a Chinese wall
round the Papal States, and never let the sound of the
railway-whistle be heard within its sacred precincts! Let us
preserve for admiring posterity at least one magnificent
specimen of absolute power, ancient art, and the Roman
Catholic religion!"
This is the language of foreign inhabitants of Rome of the old
stamp,--estimable people, and sincere believers, who have gone on year
after year witnessing the ceremonies of St.
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