CHAPTER V.
OF THE PLEBEIANS.
The subjects of the Holy Father are divided by birth and fortune into three very distinct classes,--nobility, citizens, and people, or plebeians.

The Gospel has omitted to consecrate the inequality of men, but the law of the State--that is to say, the will of the Popes--carefully maintains it.

Benedict XIV.

declared it honourable and salutary in his Bull of January 4, 1746, and Pius IX.

expressed himself in the same terms at the beginning of his _Chirografo_ of May 2, 1853.
If I do not reckon the clergy among the classes of society, it is because that body is foreign to the nation by its interests, by its privileges, and often by its origin.