And still the children sang and the diapason of the chanting rolled out like solemn thunder on the air, while at every instant some novel feature of the ever varying spectacle claimed its meed of praise. Prettiest, perhaps, of all the sights there was a little—a very little—child, a beautiful boy with golden curls, fantastically clad in raiment of camel's hair, who carried a tiny cross and led by a blue ribbon a white lamb, highly trained, no doubt, since it followed with perfect docility and exemplary meekness. A more charming model of innocent infancy than this youthful representative of John the Baptist, as with filleted head, small limbs seemingly bare, and blue eyes that never wandered to the right or left, he slowly stepped on, none of the great Italian masters ever drew....
The spectators, I noticed, behaved very variously. There were esprit forts clearly among the bourgeoisie looking on, who seemed coldly indifferent to what they saw, if not actually hostile, and who declined to doff their hats as the holiest images and the most hallowed emblems were borne by. But the peasants one and all bared their heads in reverence; and the milk-woman, with her cart and her cans, had pulled her rosary, with its dark beads and brass medals, out of her capacious pocket and was telling her beads as devoutly as her own great-grandmother could have done.
Some rivalry there may possibly have been between the different parishes which had sent forth their boys and girls, their bands and flags, and the jealously guarded treasures from crypt and chancel and sacristy to swell the pomp—Saint Jossé, with its famed old church, to which pilgrims resort even from the banks of Loire and Rhine, could not permit itself to be outshone by fashionable Saint Jacques, where it is easy for a bland abbé, who knows the world of the salons, to collect subscriptions that are less missed by the givers than a lost bet on the races, or a luckless stake at baccarat. And Saint Ursula, grim patroness of a network of ancient streets, where aristocratic mansions of the mediæval type are elbowed by mean shops and hucksters' stalls, yet tries to avoid the disgrace of being overcrowded by moneyed, pushing parvenu All Saints, where tall new houses, radiant with terra cotta and plate glass, shelter the rich proprietors of the still taller brick chimneys that dominate a mass of workmen's dwellings on the outskirts of the parish. But such a spirit of emulation only serves to enhance the glitter of the show.
And now the clashing cymbals, and the boom and bray of the brass instruments lately at their loudest, are hushed, that the rich thunder of the chanting may be the better heard, and the spectators press forward, or stand on tiptoe, to peer over the shoulders of those in the foremost rank. Something was plainly to be looked for that was regarded as the central pivot, or kernel, of the show. And here it comes,—surrounded by chanting priests, and preceded by scarlet capped and white robed acolytes swinging weighty censers, under his canopy of state borne over his head by four stronger men, some dignitary of the Church goes by. He wears no mitre—not even that of a bishop in partibus infidelium—and therefore I conjecture him to be a dean. He is at any rate splendid as jewels, and gold embroideries, and antique lace can make him; and he walks beneath his gorgeous baldaquin of gold and purple, chanting too, but in a thin reedy voice, for he is old, and his hair, silver white, contrasts somewhat plaintively with the magnificence that environs him as amidst clouds of steaming incense he totters on. The bystanders begin to disperse, for it is getting late and cold, and the shadows are beginning to creep from darkling nooks and corners, and the spectacle is over. The procession is out of sight, and fainter grow the sounds of the music and of the chanting. The last spectator to depart was a young monk, with a pale face and dreamy eyes, clad in the brown robes of his order, who during all this time had knelt on the cold stones at the monastery gate, his lips moving as his lean fingers grasped his rosary, and an expression of rapt devotion on his wan countenance, that would have done credit to some hermit saint of a thousand years ago when the crown of martyrdom was easy to find.
From All the Year Round
Christmas at the Cape
YOUR Christmas comes with holly leaves
And snow about your doors and eaves;
Our lighted windows, open wide,