more, was
completed by speculation, one of those extraordinary gambling frenzies,
those tempests which arise, rage, destroy, and carry everything away
without premonitory warning or possibility of arresting their course. All
at once it was rumoured that land bought at five francs the metre had
been sold again for a hundred francs the metre; and thereupon the fever
arose--the fever of a nation which is passionately fond of gambling. A
flight of speculators descending from North Italy swooped down upon Rome,
the noblest and easiest of preys. Those needy, famished mountaineers
found spoils for every appetite in that voluptuous South where life is so
benign, and the very delights of the climate helped to corrupt and hasten
moral gangrene. At first, too; it was merely necessary to stoop; money
was to be found by the shovelful among the rubbish of the first districts
which were opened up. People who were clever enough to scent the course
which the new thoroughfares would take and purchase buildings threatened
with demolition increased their capital tenfold in a couple of years. And
after that the contagion spread, infecting all classes--the princes,
burgesses, petty proprietors, even the shop-keepers, bakers, grocers, and
boot-makers; the delirium rising to such a pitch that a mere baker
subsequently failed for forty-five millions.* Nothing, indeed, was left
but rageful gambling, in which the stakes were millions, whilst the lands
and the houses became mere fictions, mere pretexts for stock-exchange
operations. And thus the old hereditary pride, which had dreamt of
transforming Rome into the capital of the world, was heated to madness by
the high fever of speculation--folks buying, and building, and selling
without limit, without a pause, even as one might throw shares upon the
market as fast and as long as presses can be found to print them.

* 1,800,000 pounds. See _ante_ note.--Trans.

No other city in course of evolution has ever furnished such a spectacle.
Nowadays, when one strives to penetrate things one is confounded. The
population had increased to five hundred thousand, and then seemingly
remained stationary; nevertheless, new districts continued to sprout up
more thickly than ever. Yet what folly it was not to wait for a further
influx of inhabitants! Why continue piling up accommodation for thousands
of families whose advent was uncertain? The only excuse lay in having
beforehand propounded the proposition that