"Esmeralda was surprised, when Madame Victorine came to her, to find how well she had been educated and little traces of her having belonged to a higher position several times appeared by accident, upon which occasions Madame Victorine would colour deeply and try to hide what she had said. Thus, once she was betrayed into saying, 'I managed in that way with my servants;' and once in the railway, 'I did so when I was travelling with my son.' My sister observed not only that all her dresses were of the best silk though perfectly plain, but that all her cuffs, collars, and handkerchiefs were of the very best and finest material. But the oddest circumstance was, that once when Esmeralda was going to seal a letter, having no seal about her, she asked Madame Victorine if she had one. Madame Victorine lent her one, and then, colouring violently, as if she remembered something, tried to snatch it away, but Esmeralda had already pressed it down, and saw on the impression a coronet and a cipher. When my sister first told Madame Victorine that she was too good for the place, she seemed greatly agitated and exclaimed, 'Oh don't, don't change your mind, do take me: I will consent to do anything, only do take me.'
"One day since they have been at Palazzo Parisani, Esmeralda was looking for something amongst her music. 'You will find it in such an opera,' said Madame Victorine. 'Why, do you play also?' said Esmeralda, much surprised. 'Yes,' said Madame Victorine, colouring deeply. 'Then will you play to me?' said my sister. 'Oh no, no,' said Madame Victorine, trembling all over. 'Then I hope you will play sometimes when I am out,' said Esmeralda, and this Madame Victorine said she would do, and it seemed to please her very much."[320]
"March 26.—The Santa Croce are perhaps really the oldest family in Rome. They claim descent from Valerius Publicola, and the spirit of his life, that which characterised 'the good house that loved the people well,' still remains in the family. The other day Donna Vincenza Santa Croce was speaking of the Trinità de' Monti,[321] and the system of education there, and she said, 'I do so dislike those nuns: they are so worldly: they do so give in to rank, for when a girl of one of the great noble houses is there, they will make all the other girls stand up when she comes into a room! But this, you know, is not right, for it is only goodness and talent, not rank, that ought to make people esteemed in the world.' And was not this the spirit of Valerius Publicola speaking through his descendant?"
"March 27.—Last Sunday (Palm Sunday) was the last day of the 'mission' which the Pope had appointed in the hope of warding off both the cholera and the destruction of his own power. All the week processions had paraded the streets and monks had preached in the piazzas, rousing the feelings of the people in behalf of the Holy Father, and last Sunday it all came to a close. Giacinta, 'the Saint of St. Peter's,' came to tell my sister about the scene at Santo Spirito, where she was. A Passionist Father took a real crown of thorns and pressed it upon his head three times, till the thorns sank deep into the flesh, and the blood ran in streams down his face and over his dress. The people cried and sobbed convulsively, and were excited to frenzy when he afterwards took a 'disciplina' and began violently to scourge himself before all the congregation. One man sobbed and screamed so violently that he was dragged out by the carabinieri. Whilst the feelings of the people were thus wrought up, the father besought and commanded them to deliver up all books they possessed which were mentioned in the Index, tambourines and things used in dancing the saltarella, and all weapons,—and all through that afternoon they kept pouring in by hundreds, men bringing their books, and women their tambourines, and many their knives and pistols, which were piled up into a great heap in the courtyard of the Santo Spirito and set on fire. It was a huge bonfire, which burnt quite late into the evening, and whilst it burnt, more people were perpetually arriving and throwing on their books and other things, just as in the old days of Florence under the influence of Savonarola.
"Last Thursday at the Caravità, the doors of the church were 'closed at one hour of the day' (i.e., after Ave Maria), only men being admitted, and when they were fast, scourges were distributed, the lights all put out, and every one began to scourge both themselves and their neighbours, any one who had ventured to remain in the church without using a 'disciplina' being the more vigorously scourged by the others. At such times all is soon a scene of the wildest confusion, and shrieks and groans are heard on all sides. Some poor creatures try to escape by clinging to the pillars of the galleries, others fly screaming through the church with their scourgers pursuing them like demons.
"They say that the reason why St. Joseph's day was so much kept this year is that the Pope is preparing the public mind to receive a dogma of the Immaculate Conception of St. Joseph—perhaps to be promulgated next year: St. Anne is to be reserved to another time."
"April 1, Easter Sunday.—Passion Week has been very odd and interesting, but not reverent. It was very curious to see how—as Mrs. Goldsmid says, 'the Church always anticipates,' so that the Saviour, personified by the Sacrament, is laid in the tomb long before the hour of His death, and Thursday, not Saturday, is the day upon which all the faithful go about to visit the sepulchres.[322] My sister decorated that of S. Claudio with flowers and her great worked carpet. The Mother recalls John Bunyan's confession of faith—
'Blest cross, blest sepulchre,—blest rather He,
The Man that there was put to shame for me.'
"We went to the Benediction in the Piazza S. Pietro—a glorious blue sky and burning sunshine, and the vast crowd making the whole scene very grand, especially at the moment when the Pope stretched out his arms, and, hovering over the crimson balcony like a great white albatross, gave his blessing to all the world. Surely nothing is finer than that wonderful voice of Pius IX., which, without ever losing its tone of indescribable solemnity, yet vibrates to the farthest corners of the immense piazza.
"Afterwards we went to S. Andrea della Valle to see the 'sepolcro;' but far more worth seeing was a single ray of light streaming in through a narrow slit in one of the dark blinds, and making a glistening pool of gold upon the black pavement.