The nobility as a body are sure to be more or less supporters of the established order of things. Their interests too are very much mixed up with those of the Papacy. There is not a noble Roman family which has not one or more of its members among the higher ranks of the priesthood, and to a considerable degree their distinctions, such as they are, and their temporal prospects are bound up with the Popedom. Moreover, in this rank of the social scale the private and personal influence of the priests, through the women of the family, is very powerful. The more active, however, and ambitious amongst the aristocracy feel deeply the exclusion from public life, the absence of any opening for ambition, and the gradual impoverishment of their property, which are the necessary evils of an absolute ecclesiastical government.
