rs of bouquets and "confetti" were at
their posts. A number of carriages were sent down filled with adherents
of the Government, dressed in carnival attire, to act as decoy-ducks. All
officials were required to take part in the festivities. The influence
of the priests was exerted to beat up carnival recruits amongst their
flocks, and yet the people obstinately declined coming. The revel was
ready, but the revellers were wanting. The stiff-necked Romans were not
content with stopping away, but insisted on going elsewhere. By one of
those tacit understandings, which are always the characteristic of a
country without public life or liberty, a place of rendezvous was fixed
upon. Without notice or proclamation of any kind, everybody knew
somehow, though how, nobody could tell, that the road beyond the Porta
Pia was the place where people were to meet on the day in question. The
spot was appropriate on various grounds. Along the Via Nomentana, which
leaves Rome through this gate, lies the Mons Sacer, whither the Plebs of
old seceded from the city, to escape from the tyranny of their rulers.
The gate too, which was commenced by Michael Angelo, was completed by the
present Pontiff, and there is an irony dear to an Italian's mind in the
idea of choosing the Porta Pia for the egress of a demonstration against
the Pope Pius. Perhaps, after all, the fact that the road is one of the
sunniest and pleasantest near Rome may have had more to do with its
selection than any abstract considerations. Be the cause what it may,
one fact is certain, that from the time when the Corso ought to have been
filling, a multitude of carriages and holiday-dressed people set out
towards the Porta Pia. The Giovedi Grasso is a feast-day in Rome, and
all the shops are shut, and their owners at liberty. All Rome, in
consequence, seemed to be wending towards the Porta Pia. From the gate
to the convent of St Agnese, a distance of about a mile, there was a long
string of carriages, chiefly hired vehicles, but filled with well-dressed
persons. As far as I could judge, the number of private and aristocratic
conveyances was small. The prince of Piombino, who is married to one of
the half-English Borghese princesses, was the only Roman nobleman I heard
of, as being amongst the crowd. But if the nobility were not present on
the Via Nomentana, they were equally absent from the Corso. The
footpaths were thronged with a dense file of orderly respectabl