There are things in the world which allow of no description, 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. The 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 almost might say to none, save to our own wondrous word-
wizard, 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 gritting glass, with a grating
pencil, hard outlines of coarse sketches squeezed tight against the
window-pane. After the manner in which I 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 has not been seen at Rome 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 our past Carnival is,
if I err not, no unimportant one. While then the memory of the scene is
fresh upon me, let me seek to tell what I have seen and heard. The
question whether we were to have a Carnival at all, remained long
doubtful; the usual time for issuing the regulations had long 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 the eight fete-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 to 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 the joyous licence of the 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
no masks are allowed, as the fashion for them has lately gone out. There
will be, however, disguises and fancy dresses, confetti, bouquets, races,
moccoletti, public and private balls, and, in short, every amusement of
the Carnival time." What more could be 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 untaken. 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 run General Guyon's orders, "the officer
commanding each detachment of troops which may have to act against a
crowd, 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 see 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 them from the
Corso revels. From old time, all that they have ever cared for are the
_panem et circenses_; and the Carnival gives them both. 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.
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 overcoats and red
trousers and oil-skin flowerpot hats covering the short, squat, small-
made soldiers of the 40th Foot regiment, whose fixed bayonets gleam
brightly in the rare sun-light intervals. At every piazza there are
detachments stationed; 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 anon 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 coming 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 has 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 rif-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 the scene below as
spectators, not as actors. At rare intervals a carriage passes. The
chances are that its occupants are English or Americans. 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 _coup d'oeil_.
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 friends, and 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 uncomfortable.
Half a dozen tumble-down carriages represent the Roman element. They are
filled with men disguised as peasant-women, and _vice versa_; 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 clowns--shabby, spiritless, and unmasked--grin
inanely in your face, and seem to be hunting after 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. The 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 the 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, from two to five, pass drearily. Up and down the Corso, in a
broken, straggling line, 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
"Balaclava Charge," that they are "all that are left of--not the 'twelve'
hundred"--come trotting down the Corso from the Piazza del Popolo. With
a quick shuffling march the French troops pass along the street, and form
in file, pushing back the crowd to the pavements. With drawn swords and
at full gallop the dragoons ride 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, riderless, terror-struck shaggy
ponies with numbers chalked on 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 one of the grooms who held them,
and who is lying maimed and stunned upon the ground, and you wonder at
the unconcern with which the accident is treated. Another gun sounds.
The troops form to clear the street, the crowd disperses, and the
Carnival is over for the day. A message is sent to the Vatican, to
inform the Pope that the festival has been most brilliant, and along the
telegraphic wires the truth is flashed to Paris that the day has passed
without an outbreak.
On the last day of the Carnival the Porto Pia road was full as usual, and
the Corso filled as usual with soldiers, and spies, and rabble. An order
was published, that any person appearing out of the Corso with lighted
tapers would be arrested, and therefore the idea of an evening
demonstration outside the gates was dropped. Not all the efforts,
however, of the police could light the Moccoletti in the Corso. House
after house, window after window, were left unlighted. The crowd in the
streets carried no candles, and there were only sixteen carriages or so,
all filled with strangers. Of all the dreary sights I have ever
witnessed that Moccoletti illumination was the dreariest. At rare
intervals, and in English accents, you heard the cry of "Senza Moccolo,"
which used to burst from every mouth as the tiny flames flickered, and
glared, and fell. Before the sight was half over the spectators began to
leave, and while I pushed my way through the dispersing crowds, I could
still hear the faint cry of "Senza Moccolo." As the sound still died
away, the cry still haunted me; and in my recollection, the Carnival of
1860 will ever remain as the dullest and dismalest of Carnivals--the
Carnival without mirth, or sun, or gaiety--the Carnival Senza Moccolo.