The Roman Question | Page 7

was not estimated at above a third of its real value. If capital returned
its proper interest, if activity and industry caused trade and
manufactures to increase the national income as ought to be the case, it
would be the Rothschilds who would borrow money of the Pope at six
per cent. interest.
But stay! I have not yet completed the catalogue of possessions. To the
present munificence of nature must be added the inheritance of the past.
The poor Pagans of great Rome left all their property to the Pope who
damns them.
They left him gigantic aqueducts, prodigious sewers, and roads which
we find still in use, after twenty centuries of traffic. They left him the
Coliseum, for his Capuchins to preach in. They left him an example of

an administration without an equal in history. But the heritage was
accepted without the responsibilities attached to it.
I will no longer conceal from you that this magnificent territory
appeared to me in the first place most unworthily cultivated. From
Civita Vecchia to Rome, a distance of some sixteen leagues, cultivation
struck me in the light of a very rare accident, to which the soil was but
little accustomed. Some pasture fields, some land in fallow, plenty of
brambles, and, at long intervals, a field with oxen at plough, this is
what the traveller will see in April. He will not even meet with the
occasional forest which he finds in the most desert regions of Turkey. It
seems as if man had swept across the land to destroy everything, and
the soil had been then taken possession of by flocks and herds.
The country round Rome resembles the road from Civita Vecchia. The
capital is girt by a belt of uncultivated, but not unfertile land. I used to
walk in every direction, and sometimes for a long distance; the belt
seemed very wide. However, in proportion as I receded from the city, I
found the fields better cultivated. One would suppose that at a certain
distance from St. Peter's the peasants worked with greater relish. The
roads, which near Rome are detestable, became gradually better; they
were more frequented, and the people I met seemed more cheerful. The
inns became habitable, by comparison, in an astonishing degree. Still,
so long as I remained in that part of the country towards the
Mediterranean, of which Rome is the centre, and which is more directly
subject to its influence, I found that the appearance of the land always
left something to be desired. I sometimes fancied that these honest
labourers worked as if they were afraid to make a noise, lest, by smiting
the soil too deeply and too boldly, they should wake up the dead of past
ages.
But when once I had crossed the Apennines, when I was beyond the
reach of the breeze which blew over the capital, I began to inhale an
atmosphere of labour and goodwill that cheered my heart. The fields
were not only dug, but manured, and, still better, planted and sown.
The smell of manure was quite new to me. I had never met with it on
the other side of the Apennines. I was delighted at the sight of trees.

There were rows of vines twining around elms planted in fields of
hemp, wheat, or clover. In some places the vines and elms were
replaced by mulberry-trees. What mingled riches were here lavished by
nature! How bounteous is the earth! Here were mingled together, in
rich profusion, bread, wine, shirts, silk gowns, and forage for the cattle.
St. Peter's is a noble church, but, in its way, a well-cultivated field is a
beautiful sight!
I travelled slowly to Bologna; the sight of the country I passed through,
and the fruitfulness of honest human labour, made me happy. I retraced
my steps towards St. Peter's; my melancholy returned when I found
myself again amidst the desolation of the Roman Campagna.
As I reflected on what I had seen, a disquieting idea forced itself upon
me in a geometrical form. It seemed to me that the activity and
prosperity of the subjects of the Pope were in exact proportion to the
square of the distance which separated them from Rome: in other words,
that the shade of the monuments of the eternal city was noxious to the
cultivation of the country. Rabelais says the shade of monasteries is
fruitful; but he speaks in another sense.
I submitted my doubts to a venerable ecclesiastic, who hastened to
undeceive me. "The country is not uncultivated," he said; "or if it be so,
the fault is with the subjects of the Pope. This people is indolent by
nature, although 21,415 monks are always preaching activity and
industry to them!"
CHAPTER IV.
THE SUBJECTS OF THE TEMPORAL POWER.
On