and with them various customs and
celebrations quite peculiar to Rome. They are ushered in by the festive
clang of a thousand bells from all the belfries in Rome at Ave Maria of
the evening before the august day. At about nine o'clock of the same
evening the Pope performs High Mass in some one of the great churches,
generally at Santa Maria Maggiore, when all the pillars of this fine old
basilica are draped with red hangings, and scores of candles burn in the
side chapels, and the great altar blazes with light. The fuguing chants
of the Papal choir sound into the dome and down the aisles, while the
Holy Father ministers at the altar, and a motley crowd parade and jostle
and saunter through the church. Here, mingled together, may be seen
soldiers of the Swiss guard, with their shining helmets, long halberds,
and party-colored uniforms, designed by Michel Angelo,--chamberlains of
the Pope, all in black, with their high ruffs, Spanish cloaks, silken
stockings, and golden chains,--_contadini_ from the mountains, in their
dully brilliant costumes and white _tovaglie_,--common laborers from the
Campagna, with their black mops of tangled hair,--_forestieri_ of
every nation,--Englishmen, with long, light, pendant whiskers, and an
eye-glass stuck in one eye,--Germans, with spectacles, frogged coats,
and long, straight hair put behind their ears and cut square in the
neck,--then Americans, in high-heeled patent-leather boots, a black
dress-coat, and a black satin waistcoat,--and wasp-waisted French
officers, with baggy trousers, a goat-beard, and a pretentious swagger.
Nearer the altar are crowded together in pens a mass of women in black
dresses and black veils, who are determined to see and hear all,
treating the ceremony purely as a spectacle, and not as a religious
rite. Meantime the music soars, the organ groans, the censer clicks,
steams of incense float to and fro. The Pope and his attendants kneel
and rise,--he lifts the Host, and the world prostrates itself. A great
procession of dignitaries with torches bears a fragment of the original
cradle of the Holy Bambino from its chapel to the high altar, through
the swaying crowd that gape and gaze and stare and sneer and adore. And
thus the evening passes. When the clock strikes midnight all the bells
ring merrily, Mass commences at the principal churches, and at San Luigi
dei Francesi and the Gesu there is a great illumination (what the French
call _un joli spectacle_) and very