All
officials were required to take part in the festivities. The influence
of the priests was exerted to beat up carnival recruits amongst their
flocks, and yet the people obstinately declined coming. The revel was
ready, but the revellers were wanting. The stiff-necked Romans were not
content with stopping away, but insisted on going elsewhere. By one of
those tacit understandings, which are always the characteristic of a
country without public life or liberty, a place of rendezvous was fixed
upon. Without notice or proclamation of any kind, everybody knew
somehow, though how, nobody could tell, that the road beyond the Porta
Pia was the place where people were to meet on the day in question. The
spot was appropriate on various grounds. Along the Via Nomentana, which
leaves Rome through this gate, lies the Mons Sacer, whither the Plebs of
old seceded from the city, to escape from the tyranny of their rulers.
The gate too, which was commenced by Michael Angelo, was completed by the
present Pontiff, and there is an irony dear to an Italian's mind in the
idea of choosing the Porta Pia for the egress of a demonstration against
the Pope Pius. Perhaps, after all, the fact that the road is one of the
sunniest and pleasantest near Rome may have had more to do with its
selection than any abstract considerations.
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