On Wednesday, the 13th, in the churches of St. Mary Major and St. John Lateran, solemn obsequies were also celebrated, and every parochial church in the city was on that day the scene of pious suffrages for the soul of Pius IX. In the basilicas lofty catafalques were erected, surmounted by a tiara, and surrounded with blazing torches. That in the church of St. Mary Major bore, inscribed on its four sides, a pithy yet adequate panegyric of the Pontiff—Religio, Fides, Spes, Caritas.
THE LAST ACT.
It is Wednesday evening; the great aisles of St. Peter’s at seven o’clock are empty. The bronze doors are shut. Torches, blazing in the nave of the basilica, reveal to our gaze a procession of cardinals emerging from the door of the sacristy, and moving with measured and reverential steps to the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament; the domestic prelates of the papal household, already there; the canons in surplice—one of them, Mgr. Folicaldi, in black pontificals and a snowy mitre, attended by deacons and subdeacons of honor, also in black; the officials, civil and military, of the palace in full dress; the Noble Guards; the Swiss in burnished helmets and cuirasses; the little garrison of the Vatican; the gentlemen of the pontifical court, and the Roman nobles. All form themselves into a procession. The choir sings the Miserere. Eight canons take up the catafalque. The procession moves up past the bronze statue of St. Peter, around the tomb of the apostles, and down the further aisle, to the chapel of the canons. It is the funeral of Pius IX. The catafalque is placed in the middle of the chapel. Arranged in order on the floor are three coffins—one of cypress-wood, one of zinc, and a third of chestnut. The officiating prelate blesses the first, sprinkling it with holy water, and then incensing it. Meanwhile, the cardinals press around the bier, and reverently kiss that sacred right hand which had so often blessed them, and the feet of the Pontiff. All who can come near enough do likewise. Mgr. Ricci, major-domo, spreads a white cloth over the face of the Pontiff, thus hiding it for ever from the view of man. The canons take up the pall, with its precious burden, and place it in the coffin. When the body had been properly composed, Mgr. Macchi, Master of the Chamber, placed beside it three purses of red velvet, containing respectively as many medals, gold, silver, and bronze, as there were years of the pontificate of Pius IX. A violet ribbon was sealed crosswise over the body to the edge of the coffin, with four separate seals: that of the cardinal chamberlain, that of the major-domo of the palace, a third of the archpriest of St. Peter’s, and a fourth of the chapter. Two masters of ceremonies spread a red silk cloth over the body, and a third dropped at the feet a tin tube containing a roll of parchment, on which was written in Latin the eulogy of the Pontiff. The carpenters do the rest. On the lid of the zinc coffin there is the following inscription:
CORPUS.
PII. IX. P.M.
VIXIT. AN. LXXXV. M. VIII. D. XXVI.
ECCLES. UNIVER. PRÆFUIT.
AN. XXXI. M. VII. D. XXIII.
OBIIT. DIE. VII. FEBR. AN. MDCCCLXXVIII.
When the workmen had closed the last coffin they carried it out of the chapel to a place on the left, where there was an opening in the wall high up. It was the temporary resting-place of Gregory XVI., and is of every deceased pope until he obtain permanent sepulture. It is surmounted by a marble sarcophagus adorned with a tiara. By means of ropes and pulleys they hoisted the coffin into the niche, and, after having walled up the aperture with bricks and cement, they laid on the outside a small slab of marble, with this inscription: