Behind the Throne by William Le Queux

Mary, accompanied by the faithful Teresa, a stout, middle-aged woman in black, who had seen fifteen years of service in the family, went out along the Corso, at that hour crowded by the Roman idlers and foreign visitors.

The bright air of the spring morning was refreshing after the dull gloom of the great old Antinori palace, and all Rome was full of life, movement, and gaiety. Carnival had passed, and the Pasqua was fast approaching, that time when the Roman season is its gayest and when the hotels are full of wealthy foreigners from the north.