The result was, that while the tenant starved and the landlord got less than his due in consideration of being saved from annoyance, the middleman gradually accumulated money.
Upon this system nine-tenths of the land in the Pontifical States was held, and much of the same land is so held to-day, in spite of the modern tenant-law, for reasons which will be clearly explained in another part of this history.

Corona saw and understood that the evil was very great.
She discussed the matter with her steward, or _ministro_ as he was called, who was none other than the aforesaid middleman; and the more she discussed the question, the more hopeless the question appeared.

The steward held a contract from her dead husband for a number of years.

He had regularly paid the yearly sums agreed upon, and it would be impossible to remove him for several years to come.

He, of course, was strenuously opposed to any change, and did his best to make himself appear as an angel of mercy and justice, presiding over a happy family of rejoicing peasants in the heart of a terrestrial paradise.