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 up the wine shops. The
first time he gave the benediction after that measure hardly
anybody came to be blessed.

[Page Head: ILLUMINATION OF ST. PETER'S]

_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.'

April 12th, 1830 {p.325}

At night at Torlonia's to see the girandola, which is as fine as
fireworks can be, but nothing will do after the illumination of
St. Peter's. All the world was there at an assembly after the
ceremony, at which I was introduced to Don Michele Gaetani, said
to be the cleverest man in Rome, and I had a long conversation
with Monsignore Spada, who is a young layman with ecclesiastical
rank and costume, and a judge. A Monsignore holds ecclesiastical
rank at Rome, as a Lady of the Bedchamber at St. Petersburg holds
military rank, where she is a major-general; there is no other.
He is free to marry,