th
a quick shuffling march the French troops pass along the street, and form
in file, pushing back the crowd to the pavements. With drawn swords and
at full gallop the dragoons ride back through the double line. Then
there is a shout, or rather a long murmur. All faces are turned up the
street, and half a dozen broken-kneed, riderless, terror-struck shaggy
ponies with numbers chalked on them, and fluttering trappings of pins and
paper stuck into their backs, run past in straggling order. Where they
started you see a crowd standing round one of the grooms who held them,
and who is lying maimed and stunned upon the ground, and you wonder at
the unconcern with which the accident is treated. Another gun sounds.
The troops form to clear the street, the crowd disperses, and the
Carnival is over for the day. A message is sent to the Vatican, to
inform the Pope that the festival has been most brilliant, and along the
telegraphic wires the truth is flashed to Paris that the day has passed
without an outbreak.

On the last day of the Carnival the Porto Pia road was full as usual, and
the Corso filled as usual with soldiers, and spies, and rabble. An order
was published, that any person appearing out of the Corso with lighted
tapers would be arrested, and therefore the idea of an evening
demonstration outside the gates was dropped. Not all the efforts,
however, of the police could light the Moccoletti in the Corso. House
after house, window after window, were left unlighted. The crowd in the
streets carried no candles, and there were only sixteen carriages or so,
all filled with strangers. Of all the dreary sights I have ever
witnessed that Moccoletti illumination was the dreariest. At rare
intervals, and in English accents, you heard the cry of "Senza Moccolo,"
which used to burst from every mouth as the tiny flames flickered, and
glared, and fell. Before the sight was half over the spectators began to
leave, and while I pushed my way through the dispersing crowds, I could
still hear the faint cry of "Senza Moccolo." As the sound still died
away, the cry still haunted me; and in my recollection, the Carnival of
1860 will ever remain as the dullest and dismalest of Carnivals--the
Carnival without mirth, or sun, or gaiety--the Carnival Senza Moccolo.

CHAPTER XII. ROMAN DEMONSTRATIONS. THE PIAZZA COLONNA CROWDS. THE
PORTA PIA MEETINGS. THE ANTI-SMOKE MOVEMENT.

Straws show which way the wind blows, and s