cavernous streets, in the great piazza, at the sindaco's, at college,
at club, public offices, and hotels, at the grand old palaces,
untouched since the middle ages--the glory of the city--at every
house, great and small--flutter gaudy draperies; crimson, amber,
violet, and gold, according to purse and condition, either of richest
brocade, or of Eastern stuffs wrought in gold and needle-work, or--the
family carpet or bed-furniture hung out for show. Banners wave from
every house-top and tower, the Italian tricolor and the Savoy cross,
white, on a red ground; flowers and garlands are wreathed on the
fronts of the stern old walls. If peasants, and shopkeepers, and
monks, priests, beggars, and _hoi polloi_ generally, possess the
pavement, overhead every balcony, gallery, terrace, and casement,
is filled with company, representatives of the historic families of
Lucca, the Manfredi, Possenti, Navascoes, Bernardini, dal Portico,
Bocella, Manzi, da Gia, Orsetti, Ruspoli--feudal names dear to native
ears. The noble marquis, or his excellency the count, lord of broad
acres on the plains, or principalities in the mountains, or of hoarded
wealth at the National Bank--is he not Lucchese also to the backbone?
And does he not delight in the festival as keenly as that half-naked
beggar, who rattles his box for alms, with a broad grin on his dirty
face?

Resplendent are the ladies in the balconies, dressed in their
best--like bands of fluttering ribbon stretched across the
sombre-fronted palaces; aristocratic daughters, and dainty consorts.
They are not chary of their charms. They laugh, fan themselves, lean
over sculptured balustrades, and eye the crowded streets, talking with
lip and fan, eye and gesture.

In the long, narrow street of San Simone, behind the cathedral of San