Alpha Book

The thrifty
Romans retreated to roofs and cellars and let their small dwellings.
People reaching the city on the last night slept in the cabs they had
hired to take them to St. Peter's before dawn. Even the supplies of food
ran low and the hungry fed on what they could get, while the delicate of
taste very often did not feed at all. There was of course the usual
scare about a revolutionary demonstration, to which the natives paid
very little attention, but which delighted the foreigners.
Not more than half of those who hoped to witness the ceremony saw
anything of it, though the basilica will hold some eighty thousand
people at a pinch, and the crowd on that occasion was far greater than
at the opening of the Oecumenical Council in 1869.
Madame d'Aragona had also determined to be present, and she expressed
her desire to Gouache. She had spoken the strict truth when she had said
that she knew no one in Rome, and so far as general accuracy is
concerned it was equally true that she had not fixed the length of her
stay.


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