It is not so elsewhere, except perhaps in some parts of the south.

The Piedmontese scoffs at cardinals, because he scoffs at the church and at all religion in general.

The Florentine shrugs his shoulders because cardinals represent Rome, and Rome, with all that is in it, is hateful to Florence, and always was.

But the true Roman, even when he has adopted the ideas of the new school, still feels an unaccountable reverence for the scarlet mantle.

There is a dignity--often, now, very far from magnificent--about the household of a cardinal, which is not found elsewhere.