They were born in the same
mountains, or nearly so. One obtained the influence over a woman's
heart which the other possesses over the mind of an old man. Both
governed unscrupulously, and both have merited and obtained the hatred
of their contemporaries. They have talked French comically, without
being insensible to any of the delicate niceties of the language.
Still there would be manifest injustice in placing them in the same
rank. The selfish Mazarin dictated to Europe the treaties of
Westphalia, and the Peace of the Pyrenees: he founded by diplomacy the
greatness of Louis XIV., and managed the affairs of the French
monarchy, without in any way neglecting his own.
Antonelli has made his fortune at the expense of the nation, the Pope,
and the Church. Mazarin may be compared to a skilful but rascally
tailor, who dresses his customers well, while he contrives to cabbage
sundry yards of their cloth; Antonelli, to those Jews of the Middle
Ages, who demolished the Coliseum for the sake of the old iron in the
walls.
CHAPTER XII.
PRIESTLY GOVERNMENT.
If the Pope were merely the head of the Roman Catholic Church; if,
limiting his action to the interior of temples, he would renounce the
sway over temporal matters about which he knows nothing, his
countrymen of Rome, Ancona, and Bologna might govern themselves as
people do in London or in Paris. The administration would be lay, the
laws would be lay, the nation would provide for its own wants with its
own revenues, as is the custom in all civilized countries.
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