Rome in 1860

by Edward Dicey

January 28.

At last there is a break in the dull uniformity of Roman life.—There is a ripple on the waters, whether the precursor of a tempest, or to be

followed by a dead calm, it is hard to tell. Meanwhile it is some gain at any rate, that the old corpse-like city should show signs of life, however transient. Feeble as those symptoms are, let us make the most of them.

Since the Imperial occupation of Rome, the building in the Piazza Colonna, which old Roman travellers remember as the abode of the Post Office, has been confiscated to the service of the French army. It forms, in fact, a sort of military head-quarter. All the bureaux of the different departments of the service are to be found here. The office of the electric telegraph is contained under the same roof, and the front windows of the town-hall-looking building, lit up so brightly and so late at night, are those of the French military “circle.” The Piazza Colonna, where stands the column of Mark Antony, opens out of the Corso, and is perhaps the most central position in all Rome. At the corner is the café, monopolized by the French non-commissioned officers; and next door is the great French bookseller’s.

Altogether the Piazza and its vicinity is the French quartier of Rome. At seven o’clock every evening, the detachments who are to be

on guard, during the night, at the different military posts, are drawn up in front of the said building, receive the pass-word, and then, headed by the drums and fifes, march off to their respective stations. Every Sunday and Thursday evening too, at this hour, the French band plays for a short time in the Piazza. Generally, this ceremony passes off in perfect quiet, and in truth attracts as little attention from bystanders as our file of guardsmen passing on their daily round from Charing Cross to the Tower. On Sunday evening last, a considerable crowd, numbering, as far as I can learn, some two or three thousand persons, chiefly men and boys, assembled round the band, and as the patrols marched off down the Corso, and towards the Castle of Saint Angelo, followed them with shouts of “Viva l’Italia,” “Viva Napoleone,” and, most ominous of all, “Viva Cavour.” As soon as the patrols had passed the crowd dispersed, and there was, apparently, an end of the matter. The next night poured with rain, with such a rain as only Rome can supply; and yet, in spite of the rain, a good number of people collected to see the guard march off, and again a few seditious or patriotic cries (the two terms are here synonymous) were

heard. Such things in Italy, and in Rome especially, are matters of grave importance, and the Government was evidently alarmed. Contrary to general expectation, and I suspect to the hopes of the clerical party, the French general has issued no notice, as he did last year, forbidding these demonstrations. However, the patrols have been much increased, and great numbers of the Pontifical gendarmes have been brought into the city. On Tuesday night the Papal police made several arrests, and a report was spread by the priests that the French troops had orders to fire at once, if any attempt was made to create disturbance. On the same night, too, there was a demonstration at the Apollo. I have heard, from several quarters, that on some of the Pontifical soldiers entering the house, the whole audience left the theatre, with very few exceptions. However, in this city one gets to have a cordial sympathy with the unbelieving Thomas, and not having been present at the theatre myself, I cannot endorse the story.

Last night I strolled down the Corso to see the guard pass. The street was very full, at least full for Rome, where the streets seem empty at their fullest, and numerous groups of men were

standing on the door-steps and at the shop windows. Mounted patrols passed up and down the street, and wherever there seemed the nucleus of a crowd forming, knots of the Papal sbirri, with their long cloaks and cocked hats pressed over their eyes, and furtive hang-dog looking countenances, elbowed their way unopposed and apparently unnoticed. In the square itself there were a hundred men or so, chiefly, I should judge, strangers or artists, a group of young ragamuffins, who had climbed upon the pedestals of the columns, and seemed actuated only by the curiosity natural to the boy genus, and a very large number of French soldiers, who, at first sight, looked merely loiterers. The patrol, of perhaps four hundred men, stood drawn up under arms, waiting for the word to march. Gradually one perceived that the crowds of soldiers who loitered about without muskets were not mere spectators. Almost imperceptibly they closed round the patrol, pushed back by the bystanders not in uniform, and then retreated, forming a clear ring for the guard to move in. There was no pushing, no hustling, no cries of any kind. After a few minutes the drums and fifes struck up, the drum-major whirled his staff round in the air, the ring of

soldier-spectators parted, driving the crowd back on either side, and through the clear space thus formed the patrol marched up the square, divided into two columns, one going to the right, and the other to the left, and so passed down the length of the Corso. The crowd made no sign, and raised no shout as the troops went by, and only looked on in sullen silence. In fact, the sole opinion I heard uttered was that of a French private, who formed one of the ring, and who remarked to his comrade that this duty of theirs was sacré nom de chien de métier, a remark in which I could not but coincide. As soon as the patrol had passed, the crowd retreated into the cafés or the back-streets, and in half-an-hour the Corso was as empty as usual, and was left to the sbirri, who passed up and down slowly and silently. Even in the small side-streets, which lead from the Corso to the English quarters, I met knots of the Papal police accompanied by French soldiers, and the suspicious scrutinizing glance they cast upon you as you passed showed clearly enough they were out on business.