Sunday
High Mass in St. Peter’s, which was crowded. I walked about the church to see the groups and the extraordinary and picturesque figures moving through the vast space. They are to the last degree interesting: in one place hundreds prostrate before an altar—pilgrims, soldiers, beggars, ladies, gentlemen, old and young in every variety of attitude, costume, and occupation. The benediction was much finer than on Thursday, the day magnificent, the whole piazza filled with a countless multitude, all in their holiday dresses, and carriages in the back-ground to the very end. The troops forming a brilliant square in the middle, the immense population and variety of costume, the weather, and the glorious locality certainly made as fine a spectacle as can possibly be seen. The Pope is dressed in white, with the triple crown on his head; two great fans of feathers, exactly like those of the Great Mogul, are carried on each side of him. He sits aloft on his throne, and is slowly borne to the front of the balcony. The moment he appears there is a dead silence, and every head is bared. When he rises, the soldiers all fall on their knees, and some, but only a few, of the spectators. The distance is so great that he looks like a puppet, and you just see him move his hands and make some signs. When he gives the blessing—the sign of the cross—the cannon fires. He blesses the people twice, remains perhaps five minutes in the balcony, and is carried out as he came in.
The numbers who come to the benediction are taken as a test of the popularity of the Pope, though I suppose the weather has a good deal to do with it. Leo XII. was very unpopular from his austerity, and particularly his shutting ILLUMINATION OF ST. PETER’S up the wine shops. The first time he gave the benediction after that measure hardly anybody came to be blessed.
At night.—The illumination of St. Peter’s is as fine as I was told it was, and that is saying everything. I saw it from the Pincian, from the windows of the French Academy and Horace Vernet’s room. He is established in the Villa Medici; a very lively little fellow, and making a great deal of money as director of the Academy and by his paintings. His daughter is very pretty. Here I met Savary, the Duc de Rovigo, a tall, stout, vulgar-looking man. We were introduced and conversed on French politics. Afterwards drove down to the piazza and round it. The illumination is more effective at a distance, but I think it looks best from the entrance to the piazza and the Bridge of St. Angelo; the blaze of light, the crowd, and the fountains, covered with a red glare, made altogether the most splendid sight in the world. (One poor devil was killed, and there is almost always some accident.) Eight hundred men are employed in illuminating St. Peter’s; the first pale and subdued light, which covers the whole church, is brought out by the darkness of night, the little lamps being lit in the day-time. The blazing lights which succeed are made by large pots of grease with wicks in them; there is one man to every two lamps. On a given signal, each man touches his two lamps as quick as possible, so that the whole building bursts into light at once by a process the effect of which is quite magical—literally, as the Rejected Addresses say, ’starts into light, and makes the lighter start.’