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stole, and the white chasuble and white mitre enriched with gold, two

gifts of extraordinary sumptuousness that had come from France. And, as

his Holiness drew near, all hands were raised and clapped yet more loudly

amidst the waves of living sunlight which streamed from the lofty

windows.

Then a new and different impression of Leo XIII came to Pierre. The Pope,

as he now beheld him, was no longer the familiar, tired, inquisitive old

man, leaning on the arm of a talkative prelate as he strolled through the

loveliest gardens in the world. He no longer recalled the Holy Father, in

red cape and papal cap, giving a paternal welcome to a pilgrimage which

brought him a fortune. He was here the Sovereign Pontiff, the

all-powerful Master whom Christendom adored. His slim waxen form seemed

to have stiffened within his white vestments, heavy with golden broidery,

as in a reliquary of precious metal; and he retained a rigid, haughty,

hieratic attitude, like that of some idol, gilded, withered for centuries

past by the smoke of sacrifices. Amidst the mournful stiffness of his

face only his eyes lived--eyes like black sparkling diamonds gazing afar,

beyond earth, into the infinite. He gave not a glance to the crowd, he

lowered his eyes neither to right nor to left, but remained soaring in

the heavens, ignoring all that took place at his feet.

And as that seemingly embalmed idol, deaf and blind, in spite of the

brilliancy of his eyes, was carried through the frantic multitude which

it appeared neither to hear nor to see, it assumed fearsome majesty,

disquieting grandeur, all the rigidity of dogma, all the immobility of

tradition exhumed with its _fascioe_ which alone kept it erect. Still

Pierre fancied he could detect that the Pope was ill and weary, suffering

from the attack of fever which Nani had spoken of when glorifying the

courage of that old man of eighty-four, whom strength of soul alone now

kept alive.

The service began. Alighting from the _sedia gestatoria_ before the altar

of the Confession, his Holiness slowly celebrated a low mass, assisted by

four prelates and the pro-prefect of the ceremonies. When the time came

for washing his fingers, Monsignor the Majordomo and Monsignor the Grand

Chamberlain, accompanied by two cardinals, poured the water on his august

hands; and shortly before the elevation of the host all the prelates of

the pontifical court, each holding a lighted taper, came and knelt around

the altar. There was a solemn moment, the forty thousand believers there

assembled shuddered as if they could feel the terrible yet delicious

blast of the invisible sweeping over them when during the elevation the

silver clarions sounded the famous chorus of angels which invariably

makes some women swoon. Almost immediately an aerial chant descended from

the cupola, from a lofty gallery where one hundred and twenty choristers

were concealed, and the enraptured multitude marvelled as though the

angels had indeed responded to the clarion call. The voices descended,

taking their flight under the vaulted ceilings with the airy sweetness of

celestial harps; then in suave harmony they died away, reascended to the

heavens as with a faint flapping of wings. And, after the mass, his

Holiness, still standing at the altar, in person started the _Te Deum_,

which the singers of the Sixtine Chapel and the other choristers took up,

each party chanting a verse alternately. But soon the whole congregation

joined them, forty thousand voices were raised, and a hymn of joy and

glory spread through the vast nave with incomparable splendour of effect.

And then the scene became one of extraordinary magnificence: there was

Bernini's triumphal, flowery, gilded _baldacchino_, surrounded by the

whole pontifical court with the lighted tapers showing like starry

constellations, there was the Sovereign Pontiff in the centre, radiant

like a planet in his gold-broidered chasuble, there were the benches

crowded with cardinals in purple and archbishops and bishops in violet

silk, there were the tribunes glittering with official finery, the gold

lace of the diplomatists, the variegated uniforms of foreign officers,

and then there was the throng flowing and eddying on all sides, rolling

billows after billows of heads from the most distant depths of the

Basilica. And the hugeness of the temple increased one's amazement; and

even the glorious hymn which the multitude repeated became colossal,

ascended like a tempest blast amidst the great marble tombs, the

superhuman statues and gigantic pillars, till it reached the vast vaulted

heavens of stone, and penetrated into the firmament of the cupola where

the Infinite seemed to open resplendent with the gold-work of the

mosaics.

A long murmur of voices followed the _Te Deum_, whilst Leo XIII, after

donning the tiara in lieu of the mitre, and exchanging the chasuble for

the pontifical cope, went to occupy his throne on the platform at the

entry of the left transept. He thence dominated the whole assembly,

through which a quiver sped when after the prayers of the ritual, he once

more rose erect. Beneath the symbolic, triple crown, in the golden

sheathing of his cope, he seemed to have grown taller. Amidst sudden and

profound silence, which only feverish heart-beats interrupted, he raised

his arm with a very noble gesture and pronounced the papal benediction in

a slow, loud, full voice, which seemed, as it were, the very voice of the

Deity, so greatly did its power astonish one, coming from such waxen

lips, from such a bloodless, lifeless frame. And the effect was

prodigious: as soon as the _cortege_ reformed to return whence it had

come, applause again burst forth, a frenzy of enthusiasm which the

clapping of hands could no longer content. Acclamations resounded and

gradually gained upon the whole multitude. They began among a group of

ardent partisans stationed near the statue of St. Peter: _"Evviva il

Papa-Re! evviva il Papa-Re_! Long live the Pope-King!" as the _cortege_

went by the shout rushed along like leaping fire, inflaming heart after

heart, and at last springing from every mouth in a thunderous protest

against the theft of the states of the Church. All the faith, all the

love of those believers, overexcited by the regal spectacle they had just

beheld, returned once more to the dream, to the rageful desire that the

Pope should be both King and Pontiff, master of men's bodies as he was of

their souls--in one word, the absolute sovereign of the earth. Therein

lay the only truth, the only happiness, the only salvation! Let all be

given to him, both mankind and the world! "_Evviva il Papa-Re! evviva il

Papa-Re_! Long live the Pope-King!"

Ah! that cry, that cry of war which had caused so many errors and so much

bloodshed, that cry of self-abandonment and blindness which, realised,

would have brought back the old ages of suffering, it shocked Pierre, and

impelled him in all haste to quit the tribune where he was in order that

he might escape the contagion of idolatry. And while the _cortege_ still

went its way and the deafening clamour of the crowd continued, he for a

moment followed the left aisle amidst the general scramble. This,

however, made him despair of reaching the street, and anxious to escape

the crush of the general departure, it occurred to him to profit by a

door which he saw open and which led him into a vestibule, whence

ascended the steps conducting to the dome. A sacristan standing in the

doorway, both bewildered and delighted at the demonstration, looked at

him for a moment, hesitating whether he should stop him or not. However,

the sight of the young priest's cassock combined with his own emotion

rendered the man tolerant. Pierre was allowed to pass, and at once began

to climb the staircase as rapidly as he could, in order that he might

flee farther and farther away, ascend higher and yet higher into peace

and silence.

And the silence suddenly became profound, the walls stifled the cry of

the multitude. The staircase was easy and light, with broad paved steps

turning within a sort of tower. When Pierre came out upon the roofs of

nave and aisles, he was delighted to find himself in the bright sunlight

and the pure keen air which blew there as in the open country. And it was

with astonishment that he gazed upon the huge expanse of lead, zinc, and

stone-work, a perfect aerial city living a life of its own under the blue

sky. He saw cupolas, spires, terraces, even houses and gardens, houses

bright with flowers, the residences of the workmen who live atop of the

Basilica, which is ever and ever requiring repair. A little population

here bestirs itself, labours, loves, eats, and sleeps. However, Pierre

desired to approach the balustrade so as to get a near view of the

colossal statues of the Saviour and the Apostles which surmount the

facade on the side of the piazza. These giants, some nineteen feet in

height, are constantly being mended; their arms, legs, and heads, into

which the atmosphere is ever eating, nowadays only hold together by the

help of cement, bars, and hooks. And having examined them, Pierre was

leaning forward to glance at the Vatican's jumble of ruddy roofs, when it

seemed to him that the shout from which he had fled was rising from the

piazza, and thereupon, in all haste, he resumed his ascent within the

pillar conducting to the dome. There was first a staircase, and then came

some narrow, oblique passages, inclines intersected by a few steps,

between the inner and outer walls of the cupola. Yielding to curiosity,

Pierre pushed a door open, and suddenly found himself inside the Basilica

again, at nearly 200 feet from the ground. A narrow gallery there ran

round the dome just above the frieze, on which, in letters five feet

high, appeared the famous inscription: _Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram

oedificabo ecclesiam meam et tibi dabo claves regni coelorum._* And then,

as Pierre leant over to gaze into the fearful cavity beneath him and the

wide openings of nave, and aisles, and transepts, the cry, the delirious

cry of the multitude, yet clamorously swarming below, struck him full in

the face. He fled once more; but, higher up, yet a second time he pushed

another door open and found another gallery, one perched above the

windows, just where the splendid mosaics begin, and whence the crowd

seemed to him lost in the depths of a dizzy abyss, altar and

_baldacchino_ alike looking no larger than toys. And yet the cry of

idolatry and warfare arose again, and smote him like the buffet of a

tempest which gathers increase of strength the farther it rushes. So to

escape it he had to climb higher still, even to the outer gallery which

encircles the lantern, hovering in the very heavens.

* Thou art Peter (Petrus) and on that rock (Petram) will I build

my church, and to thee will I give the keys of the Kingdom of

Heaven.

How delightful was the relief which that bath of air and sunlight at

first brought him! Above him now there only remained the ball of gilt

copper into which emperors and queens have ascended, as is testified by

the pompous inscriptions in the passages; a hollow ball it is, where the

voice crashes like thunder, where all the sounds of space reverberate. As

he emerged on the side of the apse, his eyes at first plunged into the

papal gardens, whose clumps of trees seemed mere bushes almost level with

the soil; and he could retrace his recent stroll among them, the broad

_parterre_ looking like a faded Smyrna rug, the large wood showing the

deep glaucous greenery of a stagnant pool. Then there were the kitchen

garden and the vineyard easily identified and tended with care. The

fountains, the observatory, the casino, where the Pope spent the hot days

of summer, showed merely like little white spots in those undulating

grounds, walled in like any other estate, but with the fearsome rampart

of the fourth Leo, which yet retained its fortress-like aspect. However,

Pierre took his way round the narrow gallery and abruptly found himself

in front of Rome, a sudden and immense expanse, with the distant sea on

the west, the uninterrupted mountain chains on the east and the south,

the Roman Campagna stretching to the horizon like a bare and greenish

desert, while the city, the Eternal City, was spread out at his feet.

Never before had space impressed him so majestically. Rome was there, as

a bird might see it, within the glance, as distinct as some geographical

plan executed in relief. To think of it, such a past, such a history, so

much grandeur, and Rome so dwarfed and contracted by distance! Houses as

lilliputian and as pretty as toys; and the whole a mere mouldy speck upon

the earth's face! What impassioned Pierre was that he could at a glance

understand the divisions of Rome: the antique city yonder with the

Capitol, the Forum, and the Palatine; the papal city in that Borgo which

he overlooked, with St. Peter's and the Vatican gazing across the city of

the middle ages--which was huddled together in the right angle described

by the yellow Tiber--towards the modern city, the Quirinal of the Italian

monarchy. And particularly did he remark the chalky girdle with which the

new districts encompassed the ancient, central, sun-tanned quarters, thus

symbolising an effort at rejuvenescence, the old heart but slowly mended,

whereas the outlying limbs were renewed as if by miracle.

In that ardent noontide glow, however, Pierre no longer beheld the pure

ethereal Rome which had met his eyes on the morning of his arrival in the

delightfully soft radiance of the rising sun. That smiling, unobtrusive

city, half veiled by golden mist, immersed as it were in some dream of

childhood, now appeared to him flooded with a crude light, motionless,

hard of outline and silent like death. The distance was as if devoured by

too keen a flame, steeped in a luminous dust in which it crumbled. And

against that blurred background the whole city showed with violent

distinctness in great patches of light and shade, their tracery harshly

conspicuous. One might have fancied oneself above some very ancient,

abandoned stone quarry, which a few clumps of trees spotted with dark