like a planet in his gold-broidered chasuble, there were the benches
crowded with cardinals in purple and archbishops and bishops in violet
silk, there were the tribunes glittering with official finery, the gold
lace of the diplomatists, the variegated uniforms of foreign officers,
and then there was the throng flowing and eddying on all sides, rolling
billows after billows of heads from the most distant depths of the
Basilica. And the hugeness of the temple increased one's amazement; and
even the glorious hymn which the multitude repeated became colossal,
ascended like a tempest blast amidst the great marble tombs, the
superhuman statues and gigantic pillars, till it reached the vast vaulted
heavens of stone, and penetrated into the firmament of the cupola where
the Infinite seemed to open resplendent with the gold-work of the
mosaics.

A long murmur of voices followed the /Te Deum/, whilst Leo XIII, after
donning the tiara in lieu of the mitre, and exchanging the chasuble for
the pontifical cope, went to occupy his throne on the platform at the
entry of the left transept. He thence dominated the whole assembly,
through which a quiver sped when after the prayers of the ritual, he once
more rose erect. Beneath the symbolic, triple crown, in the golden
sheathing of his cope, he seemed to have grown taller. Amidst sudden and
profound silence, which only feverish heart-beats interrupted, he raised
his arm with a very noble gesture and pronounced the papal benediction in
a slow, loud, full voice, which seemed, as it were, the very voice of the
Deity, so greatly did its power astonish one, coming from such waxen
lips, from such a bloodless, lifeless frame. And the effect was
prodigious: as soon as the /cortege/ reformed to return whence it had
come, applause again burst forth, a frenzy of enthusiasm which the
clapping of hands could no longer content. Acclamations resounded and
gradually gained upon the whole multitude. They began among a group of