I Think The Most Popular And Most Crowded Sight (Excepting Those Of
Easter Sunday And Monday, Which Are Open To All Classes Of People)
Was The Pope Washing The Feet Of Thirteen Men, Representing The
Twelve Apostles, And Judas Iscariot.
The place in which this pious
office is performed, is one of the chapels of St. Peter's, which is
Gaily decorated for the occasion; the thirteen sitting, 'all of a
row,' on a very high bench, and looking particularly uncomfortable,
with the eyes of Heaven knows how many English, French, Americans,
Swiss, Germans, Russians, Swedes, Norwegians, and other foreigners,
nailed to their faces all the time. They are robed in white; and
on their heads they wear a stiff white cap, like a large English
porter-pot, without a handle. Each carries in his hand, a nosegay,
of the size of a fine cauliflower; and two of them, on this
occasion, wore spectacles; which, remembering the characters they
sustained, I thought a droll appendage to the costume. There was a
great eye to character. St. John was represented by a good-looking
young man. St. Peter, by a grave-looking old gentleman, with a
flowing brown beard; and Judas Iscariot by such an enormous
hypocrite (I could not make out, though, whether the expression of
his face was real or assumed) that if he had acted the part to the
death and had gone away and hanged himself, he would have left
nothing to be desired.
As the two large boxes, appropriated to ladies at this sight, were
full to the throat, and getting near was hopeless, we posted off,
along with a great crowd, to be in time at the Table, where the
Pope, in person, waits on these Thirteen; and after a prodigious
struggle at the Vatican staircase, and several personal conflicts
with the Swiss guard, the whole crowd swept into the room.
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