lision between the people and the French troops,
it was resolved to adjourn the place of assemblage to the Corso. Whether
this was a thought suggested on the moment, or whether it was the result
of a preconcerted plan, is a mooted question not likely to be decided;
the resolution, however come to, was acted on at once. Neither here, nor
elsewhere, I may observe, was there anything of a tumultuous crowd, or
the slightest apparent approach to agitation on the part of the
multitude. All a spectator could observe was, that the carriages turned
homewards somewhat nearer to the gates than usual, and that the stream of
people who sauntered idly along the footpath, as on any other _festa_
day, set out earlier than they are wont to do on their return to the
city.

About six o'clock the crowd from the Porta Pia had reassembled in the
Corso. Six o'clock is always the fullest time in that street; private
carriages are coming back from the Pincio promenade, and strangers are
driving back to their hotels from the rounds of sight-seeing. The Corso,
without doubt, was unusually and densely crowded; the footpaths swarmed
with passengers, and, what was peculiarly galling to the Government,
after the failure of the Carnival, there was a double line of
aristocratic carriages passing up and down; still everything was
perfectly peaceable and orderly. At the hour of the _Ave Maria_ the
crowd was at its fullest, and this was the time selected for the outrage.
In a scene of general terror and confusion it is impossible to ascertain
exact details of the order in which events occurred, but I believe the
following account is fairly exact.

There were a great number of the Pontifical police, or _sbirri_, as the
Romans call them, scattered in knots of two or three about the Corso;
there were also several mounted patrols of the Papal gendarmes. The
police did everything in their power to excite the people, hustled the
crowd in every direction, used the most opprobrious epithets, and pushed
their way along with insulting gestures. There are various stories
afloat as to the immediate cause of the outbreak; one, that as a patrol
passed the crowd hissed; another, that a cry was heard of "Viva Vittorio
Emmanuele!" and a third, the Papal version, that on a young man of the
name of Barberi being asked by a gendarme why he wore a violet flower on
his coat, he answered rudely, and, on the officer trying to arrest him,
his comrades pulled him away. A