It is the Roman
harvest-time, when the poor gather in their gleanings. Flower-sellers,
vendors of confetti, hawkers of papers, letters-out of chairs and
benches, itinerant minstrels, perambulating cigar-merchants, pedlars,
beggars, errand-boys, and a hundred other obscure traders, pick up,
heaven knows how! enough in Carnival time to tide them over the dead
summer-season. So both necessity and pleasure, want and luxury, will
combine to swell the crowd; and the pageant will be gay enough for the
Vatican to say that its faithful subjects are loyal and satisfied.
The day opens drearily, chilly, and damp and raw, with a feeble sun
breaking through the lowering clouds; soon after noon the streets begin
to fill with soldiers. Till this year the Corso used to be guarded, and
the files of carriages kept in order, by the Italian pontifical dragoons,
the most warlike-looking of parade regiments I have ever seen. Last
spring, however, when the war broke out, these bold dragoons grew ashamed
of their police duties, and began to ride across the frontier without
leave or license, to fight in behalf of Italy. The whole regiment, in
fact, was found to be so disaffected that it was disbanded without delay,
and at present there are only some score or so left, who ride close
behind the Pope when he goes out "unattended," as his partisans profess.
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