Strangers are attracted to Rome far more by Holy Week than by the carnival, at which I was not surprised. The masqueraders establish themselves in tiers, disguised as harlequins, as pulcinellos, etc., just as we see them on the boulevards in Paris, the difference being that in Rome they never stir. I saw only a single young man going about the streets after the French fashion. He was giving a lifelike imitation of a very affected exquisite whom we had no difficulty in recognising. The carriages and wagons come and go full of richly costumed people. The horses are adorned with feathers, ribbons, and bells, the servants being dressed up as Scaramouche or Harlequin, but it all passes off in the quietest way in the world. Finally, toward evening, several discharges of cannon announce the horse-races, which enliven the rest of the day. There is no town in the world where one could pass one's time as delightfully as in Rome, even were one deprived of all the resources which good society offers. The walks within the walls are a joy, for one is never tired of revisiting the Coliseum, the Capitol, the Pantheon, the square of St. Peter's with its colonnades, its superb obelisk, and its lovely fountains, across which the rays of the sun often throw beautiful rainbows. The square is wonderfully impressive at sunset and in the moonlight. Whether it was on my way or not, I always took pleasure in crossing it. What astonished me very much in Rome was to find at the Coliseum, on Sunday mornings, a crowd of women from the lowest classes, extravagantly bedizened, loaded with ornaments, and wearing in their ears enormous stars of paste diamonds. It was also in this garb that they went to church, frequently followed by a domestic, who very often was no other than their husband, his real occupation being probably that of a valet. These women do nothing at home; their idleness is such that they live in the greatest want. They may be seen at their windows in the streets of Rome, with flowers and feathers on their head, their faces made up with cosmetics. The upper part of their dress, which is visible, indicates great luxury, so that one is surprised, upon entering their rooms, to find that they have on nothing more than a dirty petticoat. The Roman dames whom I mention nevertheless enact aristocratic parts, and when the time comes to go to the villas they carefully close their shutters in order to create the belief that they have left for the country.