Is this because, as with us in France, an equitable law is constantly subdividing large properties?  No.  The law of primogeniture is in full vigour in the kingdom of the Pope, like every other abuse of the good old times.  They provide for their younger sons as they can, and for their daughters as they please.  It is not parental justice that ruins families.  I have even heard it said that the elder brother is not obliged to put on mourning when the younger dies; which is a clear saving of so much black cloth.

This being the case, why are not the Roman princes richer than they are?  It is to be accounted for by two excellent reasons,—­the love of show, and bad management.

Ostentation, the Roman disease, requires that every nobleman should have a palace in the city, and a palace in the country:  carriages, horses, lacqueys and liveries.  They can do without mattresses, linen, and armchairs, but a gallery of pictures is indispensable.  It is not thought necessary to have a decent dinner every Sunday, but it is to have a terraced garden for the admiration of foreigners.  These imaginary wants swallow up the income, and not unfrequently eat into the capital.

And yet I could point out half-a-dozen estates which could suffice for the prodigalities of a sovereign, if they were managed in the English, or even in the French fashion,—­if the owner were to interfere personally, and see with his own eyes, instead of allowing a host of middlemen to come between him and his property, who of course enrich themselves at his expense.

Not that the Roman princes knowingly allow their affairs to go to ruin.  They must by no means be confounded with the grands seigneurs of old France, who laughed over the wreck of their fortunes, and avenged themselves upon a steward by a bon mot and a kick.  The Roman prince has an office, with shelves, desks, and clerks, and devotes some hours a day to business, examining accounts, poring over parchments, and signing papers.  But being at once incapable and uneducated, his zeal serves but to liberate the rogues about him from responsibility.  I heard of a nobleman who had inherited an enormous fortune, who condemned himself to the labor of a clerk at L50 a year, who remained faithful to his desk even to extreme old age, and who, thanks to some blunder or other in management, died insolvent.

Pity them if you please, but cast not the stone at them.  They are such as education has made them.  Look at those brats of various ages from six to ten, walking along the Corso in double file, between a couple of Jesuits.  They are embryo Roman nobles.  Handsome as little Cupids, in spite of their black coats and white neckcloths, they will all grow up alike, under the shadow of their pedagogue’s broad-brimmed hat.

Already are their minds like a well-raked garden, from which ideas have been carefully rooted out.  Their hearts are purged alike of good and evil passions.  Poor little wretches, they will not even have any vices.