that they may not die of hunger, the middle class
advances boldly to a future of wealth and consideration. Sometimes the
upper class is hostile to progress, through fear of its results; too
often the lower class is indifferent to it, from ignorance of the
benefits it confers. The middle class has never ceased to tend towards
progress, with all its strength, by an irresistible impulse, and even
at the peril of its dearest interests. A great statesman who must be
judged by his doctrines, and not by the chance of circumstances, M.
Guizot, has shown us that the Roman Empire perished from the want of a
middle class in the fifth century of our era, and we ourselves know
with what impetuosity France has advanced in progress since the middle
class revolution of 1789.

The middle class has not only the privilege of bringing about useful
revolutions, it also claims the honour of repressing popular
outbreaks, and opposing itself as a barrier to the overflow of evil
passions.

It is to be desired, then, that this honourable class should become as
numerous and as powerful as possible in the country we are now
studying; because, while on the one hand it is the lawful heir of the
temporal power of the Popes, on the other, it is the natural adversary
of Mazzinist insurrection.

But the ecclesiastical caste, which sets this fatal principle of
temporal power above the highest interests of society, can conceive
nothing more prudent or efficacious than to vilify and abuse the
middle class. It obliges this class to support the heaviest share of
the budget, without being admitted to a share in the benefits. It
takes from the small proprietor not only his whole income, but a part
of his capital, while the people and the nobility are allowed all
sorts of immunities. It demands heavy concessions in exchange for the
humblest official posts. It omits no opportunity of depriving the
liberal professions of all the importance they enjoy in other
countries. It does its best to accelerate the decline of science and
art. It imagines that nothing else can be abased, without its being
proportionately elevated.

This system has succeeded (according to priestly notions) tolerably
well at Home and in the Mediterranean provinces, but very badly at
Bologna, and in the Apennine provinces. In the metropolis of the
country the middle class is reduced, impoverished, and submissive; in
the second capital it is much more numerous, wealthy, and independent.
Bu