der
almost to the ground. In order that there might be no confusion, Franz
wore his peasant's costume.

As the day advanced, the tumult became greater. There was not on the
pavement, in the carriages, at the windows, a single tongue that was
silent, a single arm that did not move. It was a human storm, made up
of a thunder of cries, and a hail of sweetmeats, flowers, eggs, oranges,
and nosegays. At three o'clock the sound of fireworks, let off on the
Piazza del Popolo and the Piazza di Venezia (heard with difficulty amid
the din and confusion) announced that the races were about to begin. The
races, like the moccoli, are one of the episodes peculiar to the last
days of the Carnival. At the sound of the fireworks the carriages
instantly broke ranks, and retired by the adjacent streets. All these
evolutions are executed with an inconceivable address and marvellous
rapidity, without the police interfering in the matter. The pedestrians
ranged themselves against the walls; then the trampling of horses and
the clashing of steel were heard. A detachment of carbineers, fifteen
abreast, galloped up the Corso in order to clear it for the barberi.
When the detachment arrived at the Piazza di Venezia, a second volley of
fireworks was discharged, to announce that the street was clear. Almost
instantly, in the midst of a tremendous and general outcry, seven
or eight horses, excited by the shouts of three hundred thousand
spectators, passed by like lightning. Then the Castle of Saint Angelo
fired three cannon to indicate that number three had won. Immediately,
without any other signal, the carriages moved on, flowing on towards the
Corso, down all the streets, like torrents pent up for a while, which
again flow into the parent river; and the immense stream again continued
its course between its two granite banks.

A new source of noise and movement was added to the crowd. The sellers
of moccoletti entered on the scene. The moccoli, or moccoletti, are
candles which vary in size from the pascal taper to the rushlight, and
which give to each actor in the great final scene of the Carnival two
very serious problems to grapple with,--first, how to keep his own
moccoletto alight; and secondly, how to extinguish the moccoletti of
others. The moccoletto is like life: man has found but one means of
transmitting it, and that one comes from God. But he has discovered a
thousand means of taking it away, and the devil has somewhat aided him.
The