See _ante_ note .-- Trans.
No other city in course of evolution has ever furnished such a spectacle.
Nowadays, when one strives to penetrate things one is confounded.

The population had increased to five hundred thousand, and then seemingly remained stationary; nevertheless, new districts continued to sprout up more thickly than ever.

Yet what folly it was not to wait for a further influx of inhabitants! Why continue piling up accommodation for thousands of families whose advent was uncertain?
The only excuse lay in having beforehand propounded the proposition that the third Rome, the triumphant capital of Italy, could not count less than a million souls, and in regarding that proposition as indisputable fact.

The people had not come, but they surely would come: no patriot could doubt it without being guilty of treason.

And so houses were built and built without a pause, for the half-million citizens who were coming.