This is not all:  the mercante di campagna, who is not nobly born, who is not a priest, who has a wife and children, thinks he has a right to share in the management of the affairs of his country, upon the ground that he manages his own well.  He points out abuses; he demands reforms.  What audacity!  The priests would cast him forth as they would a mere advocate, were it not that his occupation is the most necessary of all occupations, and that by turning out a man they might starve a district.

But the insolence of these agricultural contractors goes still further.  They presume to be grand in their ideas.  One of them, in 1848, under the reign of Mazzini, when the public works were suspended for want of money, finished the bridge of Lariccia, one of the finest constructions of our time, at his own expense.  He certainly knew not whether the Pope would ever return to Rome to repay him.  He acted like a real prince; but his audacity in assuming a part which was not intended for his caste, merited something more than contempt.

I, who have not the honour to be a prince, have no reason to despise the mercanti di campagna.  Quite the contrary.  I have solid ones for esteeming them highly.  I have found them full of intelligence, kindness, and cordiality:  middle-class men in the best sense of the term.  My sole regret is that their numbers are so few, and that their scope of action is so limited.

If there were but two thousand of them, and the Government allowed them to follow their own course, the Roman Campagna would soon assume another aspect, and fever and ague take themselves off.

The foreigners who have inhabited Rome for any length of time, speak of the middle-class as contemptuously as the princes.  I once made the same mistake as they do, so my testimony on the subject is the more worthy of acceptation.

Perhaps the foreigners in question have lived in furnished lodgings, and have found the landlady a little less than cruel.  No doubt adventures of this kind are of daily occurrence elsewhere than in Rome; but is the middle-class to be held responsible for the light conduct of some few poor and uneducated women?

Or they may have had to do with the trade of Rome, and have found it extremely limited.  This is because there is no capital, nor any extension of public credit.  They are shocked to see the shopkeepers, during the Carnival, riding in carriages, and occupying the best boxes at the theatres; but this foolish love of show, so hurtful to the middle-class, is taught them by the universal example of those above them.

Perhaps they have sent to the chemist’s for a doctor, and have fallen upon an ignorant professor of the healing art.  This is unlucky, but it may happen anywhere.  The medical body is not recruited exclusively among the eagles of science.  For one Baroni, who is an honour at once to Rome, to Italy, and to Europe, you naturally expect to find many blockheads.  If these are more plentiful at Rome than at Paris or Bologna, it is because the priests meddle with medical instruction, as with everything else.  I never shall forget how I laughed when I entered the amphitheatre of Santo Spirito, to see a vine-leaf on ’the subject’ on which the professor was going to lecture to the students.