At the corner is the
cafe, 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.
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