I Got Upon The Border Of The Green Carpet, In Company With A Great
Many Other Gentlemen, Attired In Black (No Other Passport Is
Necessary), And Stood There At My Ease, During The Performance Of
Mass.
The singers were in a crib of wirework (like a large meat-
safe or bird-cage) in one corner; and sang most atrociously.
All
about the green carpet, there was a slowly moving crowd of people:
talking to each other: staring at the Pope through eye-glasses;
defrauding one another, in moments of partial curiosity, out of
precarious seats on the bases of pillars: and grinning hideously
at the ladies. Dotted here and there, were little knots of friars
(Frances-cani, or Cappuccini, in their coarse brown dresses and
peaked hoods) making a strange contrast to the gaudy ecclesiastics
of higher degree, and having their humility gratified to the
utmost, by being shouldered about, and elbowed right and left, on
all sides. Some of these had muddy sandals and umbrellas, and
stained garments: having trudged in from the country. The faces
of the greater part were as coarse and heavy as their dress; their
dogged, stupid, monotonous stare at all the glory and splendour,
having something in it, half miserable, and half ridiculous.
Upon the green carpet itself, and gathered round the altar, was a
perfect army of cardinals and priests, in red, gold, purple,
violet, white, and fine linen. Stragglers from these, went to and
fro among the crowd, conversing two and two, or giving and
receiving introductions, and exchanging salutations; other
functionaries in black gowns, and other functionaries in court-
dresses, were similarly engaged. In the midst of all these, and
stealthy Jesuits creeping in and out, and the extreme restlessness
of the Youth of England, who were perpetually wandering about, some
few steady persons in black cassocks, who had knelt down with their
faces to the wall, and were poring over their missals, became,
unintentionally, a sort of humane man-traps, and with their own
devout legs, tripped up other people's by the dozen.
There was a great pile of candles lying down on the floor near me,
which a very old man in a rusty black gown with an open-work
tippet, like a summer ornament for a fireplace in tissue-paper,
made himself very busy in dispensing to all the ecclesiastics: one
a-piece. They loitered about with these for some time, under their
arms like walking-sticks, or in their hands like truncheons. At a
certain period of the ceremony, however, each carried his candle up
to the Pope, laid it across his two knees to be blessed, took it
back again, and filed off. This was done in a very attenuated
procession, as you may suppose, and occupied a long time. Not
because it takes long to bless a candle through and through, but
because there were so many candles to be blessed. At last they
were all blessed: and then they were all lighted; and then the
Pope was taken up, chair and all, and carried round the church.
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