This fine scene over, we hurried to the square in front of the church, to secure places for a still finer one—that of the Pope blessing the people. Several thousand troops, cavalry and footmen, were drawn up between the steps and the obelisk, in the centre of the piazza, and the immense area embraced by the two circling colonnades was crowded by, perhaps, a hundred thousand people, with eyes directed to one single point. The variety of bright costumes, the gay liveries of the ambassadors' and cardinals' carriages, the vast body of soldiery, and the magnificent frame of columns and fountains in which this gorgeous picture was contained, formed the grandest scene conceivable.
In a few minutes the Pope appeared in the balcony, over the great door of St. Peter's. Every hat in the vast multitude was lifted and every knee bowed in an instant. Half a nation prostrate together, and one gray old man lifting up his hands to heaven and blessing them!
The cannon of the castle of St. Angelo thundered, the innumerable bells of Rome pealed forth simultaneously, the troops fell into line and motion, and the children of the two hundred and fifty-seventh successor of St. Peter departed blessed.
In the evening all the world assembled to see the illumination, which it is useless to attempt to describe.
The night was cloudy and black, and every line in the architecture of the largest building in the world was defined in light, even to the cross, which, as I have said before, is at the height of a mountain from the base. For about an hour it was a delicate but vast structure of shining lines, like a drawing of a glorious temple on the clouds. At eight, as the clock struck, flakes of fire burst from every point, and the whole building seemed started into flame. It was done by a simultaneous kindling of torches in a thousand points, a man stationed at each. The glare seemed to exceed that of noonday. No description can give an idea of it.
I am not sure that I have not been a little tedious in describing the ceremonies of the holy week. Forsyth says in his bilious book, that he "never could read, and certainly never could write, a description of them." They have struck me, however, as particularly unlike anything ever seen in our own country, and I have endeavored to draw them slightly and with as little particularity as possible. I trust that some of the readers of the Mirror may find them entertaining and novel.
Florence, 1833.—I found myself at six this morning, where I had found myself at the same hour a year before—in the midst of the rural festa in the Cascine of Florence. The Duke, to-day, breakfasts at his farm. The people of Florence, high and low, come out, and spread their repasts upon the fine sward of the openings in the wood, the roads are watered, and the royal equipages dash backward and forward, while the ladies hang their shawls in the trees, and children and lovers stroll away into the shade, and all looks like a scene from Boccaccio.
I thought it a picturesque and beautiful sight last year, and so described it. But I was a stranger then, newly arrived in Florence, and felt desolate amid the happiness of so many. A few months among so frank and warm-hearted a people as the Tuscans, however, makes one at home. The tradesman and his wife, familiar with your face, and happy to be seen in their holyday dresses, give you the "buon giorno" as you pass, and a cup of red wine or a seat at the cloth on the grass is at your service in almost any group in the prato. I am sure I should not find so many acquaintances in the town in which I have passed my life.
A little beyond the crowd, lies a broad open glade of the greenest grass, in the very centre of the woods of the farm. A broad fringe of shade is flung by the trees along the eastern side, and at their roots cluster the different parties of the nobles and the ambassadors. Their gayly-dressed chasseurs are in waiting, the silver plate quivers and glances, as the chance rays of the sun break through the leaves over head, and at a little distance, in the road, stand their showy equipages in a long line from the great oak to the farmhouse.