He had found the people so
wretched, ignorant, and resigned in its long infancy induced by historic
and climatic causes that many years of instruction and culture were
necessary for it to become a strong, healthy, and laborious democracy,
conscious of both its rights and its duties. As for the aristocracy, it
was dwindling to death in its crumbling palaces, no longer aught than a
finished, degenerate race, with such an admixture also of American,
Austrian, Polish, and Spanish blood that pure Roman blood became a rare
exception; and, moreover, it had ceased to belong either to sword or
gown, unwilling to serve constitutional Italy and forsaking the Sacred
College, where only /parvenus/ now donned the purple. And between the
lowly and the aristocracy there was as yet no firmly seated middle class,
with the vigour of fresh sap and sufficient knowledge, and good sense to
act as the transitional educator of the nation. The middle class was made
up in part of the old servants and clients of the princes, the farmers
who rented their lands, the stewards, notaries, and solicitors who
managed their fortunes; in part, too, of all the employees, the
functionaries of every rank and class, the deputies and senators, whom
the new Government had brought from the provinces; and, in particular, of
the voracious hawks who had swooped down upon Rome, the Pradas, the men
of prey from all parts of the kingdom, who with beak and talon devoured
both people and aristocracy.
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