The same scenes are enacted in the efforts to see the pope wash feet, and serve at the table.For the possession of the seats under the dome on Palm Sunday and Easter there is a like crush.The ceremonies do not begin until half-past nine; but ladies go between five and six o'clock in the morning, and when the passages are open they make a grand rush.The seats, except those saved for the nobility, are soon all taken, and the ladies who come after seven are lucky if they can get within the charmed circle, and find a spot to sit down on a campstool.They can then see only a part of the proceedings, and have a weary, exhausting time of it for hours.This year Rome is more crowded than ever before.There are American ladies enough to fill all the reserved places; and I fear they are energetic enough to get their share of them.
It rained Sunday; but there was a steady stream of people and carriages all the morning pouring over the Bridge of St.Angelo, and discharging into the piazza of St.Peter's.It was after nine when Iarrived on the ground.There was a crowd of carriages under the colonnades, and a heavy fringe in front of them; but the hundreds of people moving over the piazza, and up the steps to the entrances, made only the impression of dozens in the vast space.I do not know if there are people enough in Rome to fill St.Peter's; certainly there was no appearance of a crowd as we entered, although they had been pouring in all the morning, and still thronged the doors.Iheard a traveler say that he followed ten thousand soldiers into the church, and then lost them from sight: they disappeared in the side chapels.He did not make his affidavit as to the number of soldiers.
The interior area of the building is not much greater than the square of St.Mark in Venice.To go into the great edifice is almost like going outdoors.Lines of soldiers kept a wide passage clear from the front door away down to the high altar; and there was a good mass of spectators on the outside.The tribunes for the ladies, built up under the dome, were of course, filled with masses of ladies in solemn black; and there was more or less of a press of people surging about in that vicinity.Thousands of people were also roaming about in the great spaces of the edifice; but there was nowhere else anything like a crowd.It had very much the appearance of a large fair-ground, with little crowds about favorite booths.Gentlemen in dress-coats were admitted to the circle under the dome.The pope's choir was stationed in a gallery there opposite the high altar.Back of the altar was a wide space for the dignitaries; seats were there, also, for ambassadors and those born to the purple; and the pope's seat was on a raised dais at the end.Outsiders could see nothing of what went on within there; and the ladies under the dome could only partially see, in the seats they had fought so gallantly to obtain.
St.Peter's is a good place for grand processions and ceremonies; but it is a poor one for viewing them.A procession which moves down the nave is hidden by the soldiers who stand on either side, or is visible only by sections as it passes: there is no good place to get the grand effect of the masses of color, and the total of the gorgeous pageantry.I should like to see the display upon a grand stage, and enjoy it in a coup d,oeil.It is a fine study of color and effect, and the groupings are admirable; but the whole affair is nearly lost to the mass of spectators.It must be a sublime feeling to one in the procession to walk about in such monstrous fine clothes; but what would his emotions be if more people could see him!
The grand altar stuck up under the dome not only breaks the effect of what would be the fine sweep of the nave back to the apse, but it cuts off all view of the celebration of the mass behind it, and, in effect, reduces what should be the great point of display in the church to a mere chapel.And when you add to that the temporary tribunes erected under the dome for seating the ladies, the entire nave is shut off from a view of the gorgeous ceremony of high mass.
The effect would be incomparable if one could stand in the door, or anywhere in the nave, and, as in other churches, look down to the end upon a great platform) with the high altar and all the sublime spectacle in full view, with the blaze of candles and the clouds of incense rising in the distance.
At half-past nine the great doors opened, and the procession began, in slow and stately moving fashion, to enter.One saw a throng of ecclesiastics in robes and ermine; the white plumes of the Guard Noble; the pages and chamberlains in scarlet; other pages, or what not, in black short-clothes, short swords, gold chains, cloak hanging from the shoulder, and stiff white ruffs; thirty-six cardinals in violet robes, with high miter-shaped white silk hats, that looked not unlike the pasteboard "trainer-caps" that boys wear when they play soldier; crucifixes, and a blazoned banner here and there; and, at last, the pope, in his red chair, borne on the shoulders of red lackeys, heaving along in a sea-sicky motion, clad in scarlet and gold, with a silver miter on his head, feebly making the papal benediction with two upraised fingers, and moving his lips in blessing.As the pope came in, a supplementary choir of men and soprano hybrids, stationed near the door, set up a high, welcoming song, or chant, which echoed rather finely through the building.All the music of the day is vocal.