It has
happened to me to have described in a novel[8] a prelate who richly
deserved a thrashing; the good folks of Rome have named to me three or
four whom they fancied they recognized in the portrait. But it has
never yet been known that any prelate, however vicious, has given
utterance to liberal ideas. A single word from a Roman prelate's lips
in behalf of the nation would ruin him.
The Count de Rayneval has laboured hard to prove that prelates, who
have not received the sacrament of Ordination, form part of the lay
element. At this rate, a province should deem itself fortunate, and
think it has escaped priestly government, if its prefect is simply
tonsured. I cannot for the life of me see in what tonsured prelates
are more laymen than they are priests. I admit that they neither
follow the calling nor possess the virtues of the priesthood; but I
maintain that they have the ideas, the interests, the passions of the
ecclesiastical caste. They aim at the Cardinal's hat, when their
ambition does not soar to the tiara. Singular laymen, truly, and well
fitted to inspire confidence in a lay people! 'Twere better they
should become Cardinals; for then they would no longer have their
fortunes to make, and they would not be called upon to signalize their
zeal against the nation.
For that is, unhappily, the state at which things have arrived. This
same ecclesiastical caste, so strongly united by the bonds of a
learned hierarchy, reigns as over a conquered country.
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