Page:Rambles in Germany and Italy in 1840, 1842, and 1843 - Volume 2.djvu/253

 the Holy City, and the arguments urged to prove its exemption were absurd, and yet horrible to hear. When the great heats of August set in, and a few cases began to be mentioned, the government, grown frantic through mingled terror and folly, thought only of convincing the people that Rome would be spared. The pest might be said to have been welcomed by illuminations and processions, and its virulence propagated and fixed by the poor people being encouraged to go about barefoot, while their last coin was drained from them to buy oil for lamps to burn in the churches. The stench and heat in these edifices became of itself pestilential, for the summer was more sultry even than usual, and the crowds that filled them were tremendous. Groups of persons were to be seen in the streets and churches, standing barefoot before the Madonnas and crucifixes, expecting to see the images open their eyes and shed blood, both of which miracles, it was averred, had taken place. But this absurd buffoonery sunk into insignificance compared with the dreadful ideas purposely put into the people’s minds about poison; in the early stage of the epidemic, several persons fell victims to the frenzy thus occasioned.

In the middle of August the most splendid illuminations had place all over Rome,—a thanksgiving