"Rome, Dec. 21, 1865.—Cardinal Cecchi died last week, and lay in state all yesterday in his palace, on a high bier, with his face painted and rouged, wearing his robes, and with his scarlet hat on his head. Cardinals always lie in state on a high catafalque, contrary to the general rule, which prescribes that the higher the rank the lower the person should lie. Princess Piombino lay in state upon the floor itself, so very high was her rank.
"The Cardinal was carried to church last night with a grand torchlight procession, which is always considered necessary for persons of his rank; but it is expensive, as everything in Rome costs double after the Ave Maria. The fee for a frate to walk at a funeral is four baiocchi in the daytime, but after the Ave it is eight baiocchi. When the Marchesa Ponziani was taken to church the other day, all the confraternities in Rome attended with torches.[309]
"To-day at 10 A.M. the Cardinal was buried in the church at the back of the Catinari. According to old custom, when he was put into the grave, his head-cook walked up to it and said, 'At what time will your Eminence dine?' For a minute there was no response, and then the major-domo replied, 'His Eminence will not want dinner any more (non vuol altro).' Then the head-footman came in and asked, 'At what time will your Eminence want the carriage?' and the major-domo replied, 'His Eminence will not want the carriage any more.' Upon which the footman went out to the door of the church, where the fat coachman sat on the box of the Cardinal's state carriage, who said, 'At what time will his Eminence be ready for the carriage?' and when the footman replied, 'La sua Eminenza non vuol altro,' he broke his whip, and throwing down the two pieces on either side the carriage, flung up his hands with a gesture of despair, and drove off.
"The other day Mrs. Goldsmid was in a church waiting for her confessor, who was not ready to come out of the sacristy. While she was waiting, two men came in carrying something between them, which she soon saw was a dead frate. His robe was too short, and his little white legs protruded below. They put him on a raised couch with a steep incline and left him, and her agony was that he would slip down and fall off, and then that the priests would think she had done it. She became so nervous, that, as she kept her eyes fixed on the body, it seemed to her to slip, slip, slip, till at last she made sure the little man was coming down altogether, and going to the sacristy door, she rang the bell violently, and entreated to be let out of the church.
"Mrs. Goldsmid says that the Pope, Pius IX., cannot stop spitting even when he is in the act of celebrating mass.... Being very jocose himself, he likes others to be familiar enough to amuse him. The other day a friend asked Monsignor de Merode why the Pope was so fond of him: he said it was because, when he saw the Pope in a fit of melancholy, he always cut a joke and made him laugh, instead of condoling with him.
"The Pope is always thoroughly entertained at the stories which are circulated as to his 'evil eye' and its effects, as well as those about the 'evil eye' of the excellent and strikingly handsome Monsignor Prosperi. When the fire occurred in the Bocca di Leone, and the Pope was told of it, he said, 'How very extraordinary, for Monsignor Prosperi was out of Rome, and I was not there.'
"When the Pope, who does not speak good French, was talking of Pusey, he said, 'Je le compare à une cloche, qui sonne, sonne, pour appeler les fidèles à l'église, mais qui n'entre jamais.'
"I think there can scarcely be any set of men whose individuality is more marked than the present Cardinals.... Antonelli's manner in carrying the chalice in St Peter's is reverent in the extreme. Cardinal Ugolini, who is almost always with the Pope, never fails to ruffle up his hair in walking down St. Peter's or the Sistine."
"Christmas Day.—The Pope heard of the death of his sister, an abbess, this morning, just as he was going to be carried into St. Peter's, but the procession and the chair were waiting, and he was obliged to go. The poor old man looked deadly white as he was carried down the nave, and no wonder."
"January 15, 1866.—Went, by appointment, with Mrs. Goldsmid to the Church of SS. Marcellino e Pietro—the church with a roof like that of a Chinese pagoda, in the little valley beneath St. John Lateran. Inside it is a large Greek cross, and very handsome, with marbles, &c. The party collected slowly, Mrs. De Selby and her daughter, Mrs. Alfred Montgomery, Madame Sainte Aldegonde, the Bedingfields, a French Abbé, Mrs. Dawkins, and ourselves. Soon a small window shutter was opened to the left of the altar, and disclosed a double grille of iron, beyond which was a small room in the interior of the monastery. In the room, but close to the grille, and standing sideways, with lighted candles in front of it, was a very beautiful picture of the Crucifixion. It was much smaller than life, and seemed to be a copy of Guido's picture in the Lucina. The figure hung alone on the cross in the midst of a dark wind-stricken plain, and behind it the black storm clouds were driving through the sky, and beating the trees towards the ground. As you looked fixedly at the face, the feeling of its intense suffering and its touching patience seemed to take possession of you and fill you. We all knelt in front of it, and I never took my eyes from it. Very soon Mrs. Goldsmid said, 'I begin to see something; do you not see the pupils of its eyes dilate?' Mrs. Montgomery, in an ecstasy, soon after said, 'Oh, I see it: how wonderful! what a blessing vouchsafed to us! See, it moves! it moves!' Mrs. De Selby, who is always sternly matter-of-fact, and who had been looking fixedly at it hitherto, on this turned contemptuously away and said, 'What nonsense! it is a complete delusion: you delude yourselves into anything; the picture is perfectly still.' Mrs. Dawkins now declared that she distinctly saw the eyes move. Lady Bedingfield would not commit herself to any opinion. The French Abbé saw nothing.