We all seemed spellbound in a dull, dead, dreary circle.

There were no advertisements in the streets, except of devotional works for the coming season of Lent; no pamphlets or books placed in the booksellers' windows, which by their titles even implied the existence of the war and the revolution; no prints for sale of the scenes of the campaign, or the popular heroes of the day.

This was the normal state of Rome, such as I had seen it in former years.

Later on, indeed, either the force of events, or a change in the counsels of the Vatican, induced the Papacy to drop the defensive passive attitude which constituted its real strength, and to adopt an active offensive policy, which served rather to show the greatness of the dreaded danger than to avert its occurrence.

Still the increased animation, though perceptible enough to a Roman, appeared to a stranger but a step above absolute stagnation.