The ruler of the whole Catholic Church the world over, the chosen of God, the anointed of Christ, the heir of Saint Peter. His Holiness, Urban IV, the pope himself. Simon felt almost as much awe as he had that day in Paris when King Louis had let him kiss the Crown of Thorns.
How lucky I am to be here and see this man whom most Christians never see. It is close as one can come to seeing Jesus Christ Himself.
It looked to Simon as if the Holy Father were glowing with a supernatural light. To his left and his right stood a dozen or more men in bright red robes and wide-brimmed red hats with long red tassels dangling down to their shoulders. The cardinals, the princes of the Church. Simon wondered if the Tartars realized what honor this did them.
As soon as their sedan chair was set before the pope, the two short brown men stepped out of it, knelt, and pressed their foreheads to the cobblestones. They stayed that way until the pope gestured to de Verceuil, who bent and touched them on the shoulder and raised them up.
The pope turned and, followed by the Tartars and then the cardinals, proceeded into the cathedral. For this meeting to succeed, a papal mass was the best possible beginning.
So many people were ahead of Simon that Friar Mathieu caught up with him before he was able to enter the door of the cathedral.
"What do you think stirred up the crowd like that?" Simon asked as they pushed through the people standing in the nave of the church.
"In the cities of Italy the mob is always either furious or ecstatic," said Friar Mathieu.
"But to defile a cardinal!" Simon said. "That would never happen in France."
"Italians do not reverence the clergy as much as Frenchmen do," the Franciscan said with a little smile. "They have had to put up with the princes of the Church for so long that they are a good deal less awed by them."