They are obliged to keep up chapels, churches, hospitals, and whole chapters of fat canons, while the nobles of yesterday are not called upon to pay for either the fame or the sins of their ancestors.
At all events the foregoing list proves the mediocrity as to wealth, as in everything else, of the Roman nobility.

Not only are they unable to compete with the hard-working middle classes of London, Bale, or Amsterdam, but they are infinitely less wealthy than the nobility of Russia or of England.
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.