The crowd, as if all previously acquainted with the plan, as no doubt most of them were, issued quietly from the gate, and passed through the outside crowd,—­its members, among whom was he who dealt the blow, dispersing in all directions.  For two or three minutes this outside crowd did not know that anything special had happened.  When they did, the news was at the moment received in silence.  The soldiers in whom Rossi had trusted, whom he had hoped to flatter and bribe, stood at their posts and said not a word.  Neither they nor any one asked, “Who did this?  Where is he gone?” The sense of the people certainly was that it was an act of summary justice on an offender whom the laws could not reach, but they felt it to be indecent to shout or exult on the spot where he was breathing his last.  Rome, so long supposed the capital of Christendom, certainly took a very pagan view of this act, and the piece represented on the occasion at the theatres was “The Death of Nero.”

The next morning I went to the Church of St. Andrea della Valle, where was to be performed a funeral service, with fine music, in honor of the victims of Vienna; for this they do here for the victims of every place,—­“victims of Milan,” “victims of Paris,” “victims of Naples,” and now “victims of Vienna.”  But to-day I found the church closed, the service put off,—­Rome was thinking about her own victims.

I passed into the Ripetta, and entered the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi.  The Republican flag was flying at the door; the young sacristan said the fine musical service, which this church gave formerly on St. Philip’s day in honor of Louis Philippe, would now be transferred to the Republican anniversary, the 25th of February.  I looked at the monument Chateaubriand erected when here, to a poor girl who died, last of her family, having seen all the others perish round her.  I entered the Domenichino Chapel, and gazed anew on the magnificent representations of the Life and Death of St. Cecilia.  She and St. Agnes are my favorite saints.  I love to think of those angel visits which her husband knew by the fragrance of roses and lilies left behind in the apartment.  I love to think of his visit to the Catacombs, and all that followed.  In one of the pictures St. Cecilia, as she stretches out her arms toward the suffering multitude, seems as if an immortal fount of purest love sprung from her heart.  It gives very strongly the idea of an inexhaustible love,—­the only love that is much worth thinking about.

Leaving the church, I passed along toward the Piazza del Popolo.  “Yellow Tiber rose,” but not high enough to cause “distress,” as he does when in a swelling mood.  I heard the drums beating, and, entering the Piazza, I found the troops of the line already assembled, and the Civic Guard marching in by platoons, each battalion saluted as it entered by trumpets and a fine strain from the band of the Carbineers.

I climbed the Pincian to see better.  There is no place so fine for anything of this kind as the Piazza del Popolo, it is so full of light, so fair and grand, the obelisk and fountain make so fine a centre to all kinds of groups.