The Consequence Was, That It Occasioned The Most
Extraordinary Confusion, And Seemed To Wind Itself About The
Unwary, Like A Serpent.
Now, a lady was wrapped up in it, and
couldn't be unwound.
Now, the voice of a stifling gentleman was
heard inside it, beseeching to be let out. Now, two muffled arms,
no man could say of which sex, struggled in it as in a sack. Now,
it was carried by a rush, bodily overhead into the chapel, like an
awning. Now, it came out the other way, and blinded one of the
Pope's Swiss Guard, who had arrived, that moment, to set things to
rights.
Being seated at a little distance, among two or three of the Pope's
gentlemen, who were very weary and counting the minutes--as perhaps
his Holiness was too--we had better opportunities of observing this
eccentric entertainment, than of hearing the Miserere. Sometimes,
there was a swell of mournful voices that sounded very pathetic and
sad, and died away, into a low strain again; but that was all we
heard.
At another time, there was the Exhibition of Relics in St. Peter's,
which took place at between six and seven o'clock in the evening,
and was striking from the cathedral being dark and gloomy, and
having a great many people in it. The place into which the relics
were brought, one by one, by a party of three priests, was a high
balcony near the chief altar. This was the only lighted part of
the church.
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