LETTER LX.
PRESENTATION AT THE PAPAL COURT—PILGRIMS GOING TO VESPERS—PERFORMANCE OF THE MISERERE—TARPEIAN ROCK—THE FORUM—PALACE OF THE CESARS—COLISEUM.
I have been presented to the Pope this morning, in company with several Americans—Mr. and Mrs. Gray, of Boston, Mr. Atherton and daughters, and Mr. Walsh of Philadelphia, and Mr. Mayer of Baltimore. With the latter gentleman, I arrived rather late, and found that the rest of the party had been already received, and that his Holiness was giving audience, at the moment, to some Russian ladies of rank. Bishop England, of Charleston, however, was good enough to send in once more, and, in the course of a few minutes, the chamberlain in waiting announced to us that Il Padre Santo would receive us. The ante-room was a picturesque and rather peculiar scene. Clusters of priests, of different rank, were scattered about in the corners, dressed in a variety of splendid costumes, white, crimson, and ermine, one or two monks, with their picturesque beards and flowing dresses of gray or brown, were standing near one of the doors, in their habitually humble attitudes; two gentlemen mace-bearers guarded the door of the entrance to the Pope's presence, their silver batons under their arms, and their open breasted cassocks covered with fine lace; the deep bend of the window was occupied by the American party of ladies, in the required black veils; and around the outer door stood the helmeted guard, a dozen stout men-at-arms, forming a forcible contrast to the mild faces and priestly company within.
The mace-bearers lifted the curtain, and the Pope stood before us, in a small plain room. The Irish priest who accompanied us prostrated himself on the floor, and kissed the embroidered slipper, and Bishop England hastily knelt and kissed his hand, turning to present us as he rose. His Holiness smiled, and stepped forward, with a gesture of his hand, as if to prevent our kneeling, and, as the bishop mentioned our names, he looked at us and nodded smilingly, but without speaking to us. Whether he presumed we did not speak the language, or whether he thought us too young to answer for ourselves, he confined his inquiries about us entirely to the good bishop, leaving me, as I wished, at leisure to study his features and manner. It was easy to conceive that the father of the Catholic church stood before me, but I could scarcely realize that it was a sovereign of Europe, and the temporal monarch of millions. He was dressed in a long vesture of snow-white flannel, buttoned together in front, with a large crimson velvet cape over his shoulders, and band and tassels of silver cloth hanging from beneath. A small white scull-cap covered the crown of his head, and his hair, slightly grizzled, fell straight toward a low forehead, expressive of good-nature merely. A large emerald on his finger, and slippers wrought in gold, with a cross on the instep, completed his dress. His face is heavily moulded, but unmarked, and expressive mainly of sloth and kindness; his nose is uncommonly large, rather pendant than prominent, and an incipient double chin, slightly hanging cheeks, and eyes, over which the lids drop, as if in sleep, at the end of every sentence, confirm the general impression of his presence—that of an indolent and good old man. His inquiries were principally of the Catholic church in Baltimore (mentioned by the bishop as the city of Mr. Mayer's residence), of its processions, its degree of state, and whether it was recognised by the government. At the first pause in the conversation, his Holiness smiled and bowed, the Irish priest prostrated himself again, and kissed his foot, and, with a blessing from the father of the church, we retired.
On the evening of holy Thursday, as I was on my way to St. Peter's to hear the miserere once more, I overtook the procession of pilgrims going up to vespers. The men went first in couples, following a cross, and escorted by gentlemen penitents covered conveniently with sackcloth, their eyes peeping through two holes, and their well-polished boots beneath, being the only indications by which their penance could be betrayed to the world. The pilgrims themselves, perhaps a hundred in all, were the dirtiest collection of beggars imaginable, distinguished from the lazars in the street, only by a long staff with a faded bunch of flowers attached to it, and an oil-cloth cape stitched over with scallop-shells. Behind came the female pilgrims, and these were led by the first ladies of rank in Rome. It was really curious to see the mixture of humility and pride. There were, perhaps, fifty ladies of all ages, from sixteen to fifty, walking each between two filthy old women who supported themselves by her arms, while near them, on either side of the procession, followed their splendid equipages, with numerous servants, in livery, on foot, as if to contradict to the world their temporary degradation. The lady penitents, unlike the gentlemen, walked in their ordinary dress. I had several acquaintances among them; and it was inconceivable, to me, how the gay, thoughtless, fashionable creatures I had met in the most luxurious drawing-rooms of Rome, could be prevailed upon to become a part in such a ridiculous parade of humility. The chief penitent, who carried a large, heavy crucifix at the head of the procession, was the Princess ——, at whose weekly soirees and balls assemble all that is gay and pleasure-loving in Rome. Her two nieces, elegant girls of eighteen or twenty, walked at her side, carrying lighted candles, of four or five feet in length, in broad day-light, through the streets!
The procession crept slowly up to the church, and I left them kneeling at the tomb of St. Peter, and went to the side chapel, to listen to the miserere. The choir here is said to be inferior to that in the Sistine chapel, but the circumstances more than make up for the difference, which, after all, it takes a nice ear to detect. I could not but congratulate myself, as I sat down upon the base of a pillar, in the vast aisle, without the chapel where the choir were chanting, with the twilight gathering in the lofty arches, and the candles of the various processions creeping to the consecrated sepulchre from the distant parts of the church. It was so different in that crowded and suffocating chapel of the Vatican, where, fine as was the music, I vowed positively never to subject myself to such annoyance again.
It had become almost dark, when the last candle but one was extinguished in the symbolical pyramid, and the first almost painful note of the miserere wailed out into the vast church of St. Peter. For the next half hour, the kneeling listeners, around the door of the chapel, seemed spell-bound in their motionless attitudes. The darkness thickened, the hundred lamps at the far-off sepulchre of the saint, looked like a galaxy of twinkling points of fire, almost lost in the distance; and from the now perfectly obscured choir, poured, in ever-varying volume, the dirge-like music, in notes inconceivably plaintive and affecting. The power, the mingled mournfulness and sweetness, the impassioned fulness, at one moment, and the lost, shrieking wildness of one solitary voice, at another, carry away the soul like a whirlwind. I have never been so moved by anything. It is not in the scope of language to convey an idea to another of the effect of the miserere.
It was not till several minutes after the music had ceased, that the dark figures rose up from the floor about me. As we approached the door of the church, the full moon, about three hours risen, poured broadly under the arch of the portico, inundating the whole front of the lofty dome with a flood of light, such as falls only on Italy. There seemed to be no atmosphere between. Daylight is scarce more intense. The immense square, with its slender obelisk and embracing crescents of colonnade, lay spread out as definitely to the eye as at noon, and the two famous fountains shot up their clear waters to the sky, the moonlight streamed through the spray, and every drop as visible and bright as a diamond.
I got out of the press of carriages, and took a by-street along the Tiber, to the Coliseum. Passing the Jews' quarter, which shuts at dark by heavy gates, I found myself near the Tarpeian rock, and entered the Forum, behind the ruins of the temple of Fortune. I walked toward the palace of the Cesars, stopping to gaze on the columns, whose shadows have fallen on the same spot, where I now saw them, for sixteen or seventeen centuries. It checks the blood at one's heart, to stand on the spot and remember it. There was not the sound of a footstep through the whole wilderness of the Forum. I traversed it to the arch of Titus in a silence, which, with the majestic ruins around, seemed almost supernatural—the mind was left so absolutely to the powerful associations of the place.
Ten minutes more brought me to the Coliseum. Its gigantic walls, arches on arches, almost to the very clouds, lay half in shadow, half in light, the ivy hung trembling in the night air, from between the cracks of the ruin, and it looked like some mighty wreck in a desert. I entered, and a hundred voices announced to me the presence of half the fashion of Rome. I had forgotten that it was the mode "to go to the Coliseum by moonlight." Here they were dancing and laughing about the arena where thousands of Christians had been torn by wild beasts, for the amusement of the emperors of Rome; where gladiators had fought and died; where the sands beneath their feet were more eloquent of blood than any other spot on the face of the earth—and one sweet voice proposed a dance, and another wished she could have music and supper, and the solemn old arches re-echoed with shouts and laughter. The travestie of the thing was amusing. I mingled in the crowd, and found acquaintances of every nation, and an hour I had devoted to romantic solitude and thought passed away, perhaps, quite as agreeably, in the nonsense of the most thoughtless triflers in society.