Ch. 14 - The Famine

The end of November is approaching. Nearly a month has elapsed since
the occurrence of the events mentioned in the last chapter, yet still
the Gothic lines stretch round the city walls. Rome, that we left
haughty and luxurious even while ruin threatened her at her gates, has
now suffered a terrible and warning change. As we approach her again,
woe, horror, and desolation have already gone forth to shadow her lofty
palaces and to darken her brilliant streets.

Over Pomp that spurned it, over Pleasure that defied it, over Plenty
that scared it in its secret rounds, the spectre Hunger has now risen
triumphant at last. Day by day has the city's insufficient allowance of
food been more and more sparingly doled out; higher and higher has risen
the value of the coarsest and simplest provision; the hoarded supplies
that pity and charity have already bestowed to cheer the sinking people
have reached their utmost limits. For the rich, there is still corn in
the city--treasure of food to be bartered for treasure of gold. For the
poor, man's natural nourishment exists no more; the season of famine's
loathsome feasts, the first days of the sacrifice of choice to necessity
have darkly and irretrievably begun.

It is morning. A sad and noiseless throng is advancing over the cold
flagstones of the great square before the Basilica of St. John Lateran.
The members of the assembly speak in whispers. The weak are tearful--the
strong are gloomy--they all move with slow and languid gait, and hold in
their arms their dogs or other domestic animals. On the outskirts of
the crowd march the enfeebled guards of the city, grasping in their
rough hands rare favourite birds of gaudy plumage and melodious note,
and followed by children and young girls vainly and piteously entreating
that their favourites may be restored.

This strange procession pauses, at length, before a mighty caldron slung
over a great fire in the middle of the square, round which stand the
city butchers with bare knives, and the trustiest men of the Roman
legions with threatening weapons. A proclamation is then repeated,
commanding the populace who have no money left to purchase food, to
bring up their domestic animals to be boiled together over the public
furnace, for the sake of contributing to the public support.

The next minute, in pursuance of this edict, the dumb favourites of the
crowd passed from the owner's caressing hand into the butcher's ready
grasp. The faint cries of the animals, starved like their masters,
mingled for a few moments with the sobs and lamentations of the women
and children, to whom the greater part of them belonged. For, in this
the first stage of their calamities, that severity of hunger which
extinguishes pity and