lying maimed and stunned upon the ground, and you wonder at the unconcern with which the accident is treated.  Another gun sounds.  The troops form to clear the street, the crowd disperses, and the Carnival is over for the day.  A message is sent to the Vatican, to inform the Pope that the festival has been most brilliant, and along the telegraphic wires the truth is flashed to Paris that the day has passed without an outbreak.

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.