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 so, though the straws themselves are valueless, yet as indications of what is coming, their motions are worth noting. It is thus that I judge of the series of demonstrations which marked the spring of this year in Rome, and which ended in the outrage of St Joseph’s day. Of themselves they were less than worthless, but as tokens of the future they possess a value of their own. In recent Papal history they form a strange page. Let me note their features briefly, as I wrote of them at the time.
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