Be the cause what it may,
one fact is certain, that from the time when the Corso ought to have been
filling, a multitude of carriages and holiday-dressed people set out
towards the Porta Pia. The Giovedi Grasso is a feast-day in Rome, and
all the shops are shut, and their owners at liberty. All Rome, in
consequence, seemed to be wending towards the Porta Pia. From the gate
to the convent of St Agnese, a distance of about a mile, there was a long
string of carriages, chiefly hired vehicles, but filled with well-dressed
persons. As far as I could judge, the number of private and aristocratic
conveyances was small. The prince of Piombino, who is married to one of
the half-English Borghese princesses, was the only Roman nobleman I heard
of, as being amongst the crowd. But if the nobility were not present on
the Via Nomentana, they were equally absent from the Corso. The
footpaths were thronged with a dense file of orderly respectable people.
There were, perhaps, half-a-dozen carriages, the owners of which had some
sort of carnival-dress on, but that was all. There were no cries, no
throwing of confetti, no demonstration of feeling, except in the very
fact of the assemblage. As far as I could guess from my own observation,
there were about 6000 people present, and from 400 to 500 carriages;
though persons who ought to be well informed have told me that there were
double these numbers.
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