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March 10, I860.] The Leader andSaturday'...
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FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. (special.) Rome,...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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March 10, I860.] The Leader Andsaturday'...
March 10 , I 860 . ] The Leader andSaturday ' Analyst . 230
Foreign Correspondence. (Special.) Rome,...
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE . ( special . ) Rome , February 21 . THE " - GARNT 1 VAL SENZA MOCCOLQ . " rnHEIlE are things in the world which allow of no description , X and of such things a true Roman carnival is one . You might as well seek to analyze champagne , or expound the mystery of melody , or tell why a woman pleases you . Ihe strange web of colour , beauty , mirth , wit , and folly is tangled so together / that common hands cannot unravel it . To paint a carnival without blotching , to touch it without destroying , is an art given unto few—I might almost say to none—save to our own wondrous wordwizard , who dreamt the " dream of Venice , and told it waking . For my own part , the only branch of art to which , even as a child , I ever took kindly was the humble one of tracing upon gritty glass
with a grating pencil hard outlines of coarse sketches squeezed tight against the window pane . After the manner in which 1 used to draw , I have since sought to write . For such a picture frame then as mine , the airy baseless fabric of an Italian revel is no fitting subject , and had the Roman Carnival for 1860 been even as other carnivals are , I should have left it unrecorded . It has been my lot , however , to witness such a Carnival as lias not been seen at Home before , and is not likely to be seen again . In the decay of ¦ creeds and the decline of dynasties there appear from time to time signs which , like the writing on the wall , proclaim the coming change , and amongst these signs pur past Carnival is , if I err not , no unimportant one . While , then , the memory of the scene is yet fresh upon me , let me seek to tell what I have seen and heard .
The question whether we were to have a Carnival at alii remained long doubtful . The iisuul time for issuing the regulations had lon ~ passed , and no edict had appeared . Strange reports were spread , and odd stories circulated . Our rulers were , it seems , equally afraid of having a Carnival and not having it ; and with their wonted wisdom decided on the middle course of having a carnival which was ; not a carnival at alL One week before the first of theeightfete days , the long-delayed edict was posted on the walls . The festival was to be celebrated as usual , except that no ^ masks were to be allowed . False beards and * moustaches , or any attempt to disguise the features , were strictly forbidden . Political allusions , or cries of any kind , were placed under the same ban . Crowds were ^ disperse at a moment ' s notice , and prompt obedience was to be
rendered to any injunction of the police . Subject , to these slight restraints , the wild revel and joyous licence of tlie Carnival was to rule unbridled . In the words-of a Papal -writer in the Government Gazette of Venice , " The festival is to be celebrated in full vigour , except that masks are not allowed , as the fashion for them has lately gone out . There will be , however , disguises and fancy dresses , confetti , bouquets , races , moccolctti , public and private balls , and , in short , every amusement of the Carnival time . " "What move could he required by a happy and contented people ? Somehow , the news does not seem to be received with any extraordinary rejoicing . A group of idlers gaze at the decree and pass on , shrugging their shoulders listlessly . Along the Corso notice boards are hung out of balconies to let , but the notices grow mildewed , and the balconies ¦
remain tm taken . The carriage-drivers don t pester you , as in former years , to engage them for the Carnival ; and the fancy dresses exposed in the shop windows are shabby and few In number . There is no appearance of unnecessary excitement ; but " still waters run deep , and in order to restrain any possible exuberance of feeling on the very night before . the Carnival the French general issues a manifesto . " To prevent painful occurrences , " so runs General Guyon ' s orders , " the officer commanding . ouch detachment of troops which may have to act against a crovyd , shall himself , or through a police officer , make it a summons to disperse . After this warning the . crowd must disperse instantly , without noise or cries , if it does not wish to sec force employed . " Still no doubts are entertained of the brilliancy of the Carnival . The Romans ( so at
least their rulers say , and who should know them better ?) will enjoy themselves notwithstanding . The Carnival is their great holiday , the one week of pleasure counted on the long dull year through , and no power on earth , still less no abstract consideration , will keep thorn from the Corso revels . From old time , all that tljey have ever cared for are the " panes at tircenses , " aiid the Carnival gives them both . It is the Roman luiryest'timo , 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 boya , and a hundred other obscure traders , pick up , lipuvcn knows how , enough in Carniyail time to tide them , over the dead summer season . So both necessity and pleasure , want and luxury , will combine to swell tho crowd , and for tho Vatican to that
tho pageant will be surely guy enough say ^ a faithful subjects nro loyal and satisfied . The day opens droarily , chilly , and damp ami raw , with a feeble sun breaking at intervals through the lowering 1 clouds . Soon after noon tho streets begin to fill with soldiers . Till this year tho Corso used to be guarded , and the files of carriages kept in , order by the Kalian pontifical drajroonn , tho most warlike-looking of parade regiments I have ever soon . Lnst spring , however , when tho war broke out , those bold dragoons grow ashnmoa of their police duties , and began to ride across tho frontier without lunvcor license , to fight in behalf of Italy . Tho wliolo regiment , in fact , wa . s found , to bo so disaffected , that it was disbanded without ; delay ; and at present there arc only some snore or so left , who ride close behind the Fonp when he goes out " unattended / ' as his
partisans profess . So the dragoons having disappeared , the duty of keeping order is given to the French soldiers . There are soldiers ranged everywhere . Along the street pavements there is one long line of blue , over-coats and red trousers and oilskin flowerpot hats covering the short , squat , small-made soldiers of . the 40 th Foot regiment , whose fixed bayonets gleam brightly in tlie rare sunlight intervals . At every piazza there are detachments stationed j their muskets are stacked in rows on the ground , and the men stand
ready to march at the word of order . In every side street sentinels are posted * From time to time orderlies : gallop past . Ever and anoii you hear the rub-a-dub of the drums , as new detachments pass on towards the Corso . The head quarters at the Piazza Colonna are crowded with officers coining- and going , and the whole French troops off duty seem to have received orders to crowd the Corso , where they stroll along in knots of three or four , alone and unnoticed by the crowd around them . The heavy guns boom forth from the Castle of St . Angelo , and the Carnival ha 3
begun . Gradually and slowly the street fills . One day is so like another , that to see one is to have seen all . The length of the Corso , there saunters listlessly an idle , cloak-wrapt , hands-in-pocket-wearing ; cigar-smoking , shivering crowd , composed of French soldiers and the riff-raff of Rome , the proportion being one of the former to every two or three of the latter . The balconies , which grow like mushrooms on the fronts of every house , in all out-of-the-way places and positions , are every now and then adorned with red hangings . These balconies and the Windows are scantily filled with shabbily-dressed persons , who look on at the scene below , as spectators , not as actors . At rare intervals a carriage passes . lish ricans
The chances are that its occupants are Eng or Ame . On the most crowded day , there are , perhaps , at one time , fifty carriages in all , of which more than half belong to the forestieri . Indeed , if it were not for our Anglo-Saxon countrymen , there would be no Carnival at all . We don't contribute much , it is true , to the brilliancy of the coupd ' ceil . Our gentlemen are in . the shabbiest of coats and seediest of hats , while our ladies wear grey cloaks and round , soup-plate bonnets . However , if we are not ornamental , we are useful . We pelt each other with a hearty vigour , and discharge volleys of confetti at every window where a fair English face appears . The poor luckless nosegay or sugar-plum boys look upon us as their best friendsand follow our carriages with importunate pertinacity .
, Fancy dresses of any kind are few . There are one or two very young men—English , I suspect- ^ dressed as Turks , or Greeks , or pirates , after Highbury Barn traditions , looking cold and uncomfortablei Half a dozen tumble-down carriages represent the Roman element . They are filled with men disguised as peasant 1 women , and vice versd ; but , whether justly or unjustly , they are supposed to be chartered for the show by the Government , and attract small comment or notice . Amongst the foot-crowd , with the exception of a stray foreigner , there is not a well-dressed person to be seen . The fun is of the most dismal character . Boys with bladders whack each other on the back , and jump upon each other's , shoulders .
Harlequins and elowns-rshabby , spiritless , and unmasked—grm inanely in your face , and seem to be hunting alter a joke they can never find . A quack doctor , or a man in crinoline , followed by a nigger holding- an umbrella over his head , or a swell with pasteboard collars and a chimney-pot on his head , pass from time to time , and shout to the bystanders , but receive no answer . Give them a wide berth , for they are spies , and bad company , lhe one great amusement is pelting a black hat , " the glossier the better . After a short time even this pleasure palls , and , moreover , victims grow scarce , for tho crowd , contrary to the run of Italian crowds , is an ill-bred , ill-conditioned one , and take to throw nosegays weighted with stones , which hurt and cut . So the long three hours , » rom in brok
two to five , pifcs drearily . Up and down the Uorso , a en straggling lino , amidst feeble showers of chalk ( not sugar ) plums , and a drizzle ' of penny posies to the sound of one solitary band , the crowd sways to and fro . At last the guns boom again . Then the score of dragoons—of whom one may truly say , in the words of Tennyson ' s " -BalaclavaCharge , " that they are " nil that are left olnot the ' twelve' hundred "—come trotting down tlie Corso from the Piazza del Popolo . With a quick shuffling 1 march , the French troops pass along the street , and form in file , pushing back the crowd to the pavements . Withdrawn swords and at full gallop , the dragoons rido back through the double line . Then there is a shout , or rather a long murmur . All faces are turned up the street , and half a dozen broken-kneed , ridortess , terror-struck' shaggy ponies , with numbers chalked upon them , and fluttering trappings of pins and paper-stuck into their backs , run past in straggling order . Where they started you see a crowd standing round ono of the grooms who hold them , and who is lying maimed and stunned upon Pi * 1 .... „ , ! ,... .. 4 . i , L . n ininntiniliill XVtt II IVIllrtll tillft wuhuui »«
—me ground , nnu yyu iiy vuu unuu « vv . >» .,... .. ----accident is treated . Another gun sounds . The troops form to clear the street , the crowd disperses , and the Oarmval is over tor the day . A message is Bont to the Vatican , to inform the Pone tlmb the festival has been most brilliant , and along- tho telegraphic w » ros the truth is flashed to Paria that tho day has pasfled , without an outbreak . Tho dull round , however , of tho eight carnival days , all so drearily like each other , was not unbroken by other inuWonta . ; ¦ il » uro < W laat , the tl Giovcdl Graaso , " i » the . ffrent people ' s , day . It is a festival , and all shops are shut , and tho citizens are at liberty . On tnifl day the devotees of the Carnival worship had pinned their last hopes . If to-day was ft failure as before , it waa all up with tin * your a Carnival . There wore extra carriages chartered by Cjovoinmonr , imd the Papal officials wore roquirod to muster in tho Corso Daico-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 10, 1860, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10031860/page/19/
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