rough the long galleries of
the Vatican to another hall where the pilgrims dine. The
arrangements for the accommodation of the Ambassadors and
strangers were so bad that all these passages were successive
scenes of uproar, scrambling, screaming, confusion, and danger,
and, considering that the ceremonies were all religious, really
disgraceful. We got with infinite difficulty to another box,
raised aloft in the hall, and saw a long table at which the
thirteen pilgrims seated themselves; a cardinal in the corner
read some prayers, which nobody listened to, and another handed
the dishes to the pilgrims, who looked neither to the right nor
the left, but applied themselves with becoming gravity to the
enjoyment of a very substantial dinner. The whole hall was filled
with people, all with their hats on, chattering and jostling, and
more like a ring of blacklegs and blackguards at Tattersall's
than respectable company at a religious ceremony in the palace of
the Pope. There remained the cardinals' dinner, but I had had
more than enough, and came away hot, jaded, and disgusted with
the whole affair.

[Page Head: THE GRAND PENITENTIARY]

In the evening I went to St. Peter's, when I was amply
recompensed for the disappointment and bore of the morning. The
church was crowded; there was a Miserere in the chapel, which was
divine, far more beautiful than anything I have heard in the
Sistine, and it was the more effective because at the close it
really was night. The lamps were extinguished at the shrine of
the Apostle, but one altar--the altar of the Holy Sepulchre--was
brilliantly illuminated. Presently the Grand Penitentiary,
Cardinal Gregorio, with his train entered, went and paid his
devotions at this shrine, and then seated himself on the chair of
the Great Confessional, took a golden wand, and touched all those
who knelt before him. Then came a procession of pilgrims bearing
muffled crosses; penitents with faces covered, in white, with
tapers and crosses; and one long procession of men headed by
these muffled figures, and another of women accompanied by
ladies, a lady walking between every two pilgrims. The cross in
the procession of women was carried by the Princess Orsini, one
of the greatest ladies in Rome. They attended them to the church
(the Trinita delle Pellegrine) and washed their feet and fed
them. A real washing of dirty feet. Both the men and the women
seemed of the lowest class, but their appearance and dress