ttle chapel on the right hand as you enter St. Peter's; for in the
niche above the altar is the group of the Virgin with the dead Christ on
her knees, one of the few works which the volcanic genius of Michel
Angelo could bring itself to finish in marble. In this chapel, directly
in front of this marvellous group, the body of the dead Pope, embalmed
and clad in Pontifical robes, is laid on a sumptuous bier, amid a blaze
of tapers, with sentinels from the Swiss guard at his feet, leaning on
their long halberds, and officers of the household in official costume,
and all that imposing mixture of sacred and profane which Rome knows so
well how to use upon all great occasions. And here, day after day, the
faithful still crowd to take the last look of their "Holy Father," and
kiss the cross on his slipper, and repeat a prayer for his soul. And
hundreds among them, especially the very young and the very old, go a
few yards farther on to the bronze statue of St. Peter, once the bronze
statue of Jupiter, and with equal faith imprint a fervent kiss on the
well-worn toe, and repeat a prayer for themselves.

On the opposite side, over the doorway that leads to the dome, is a
large sarcophagus of white marble, looking down, if marble can be
supposed to look, upon the monument of the last of the Stuarts: dead
Pope and dead King almost face to face; crown and tiara mouldering
within a few paces of each other; for in that sarcophagus Pope after
Pope has silently taken his place, till summoned by the death of his
successor to go down to the darker slumbers of the vaults below. And at
the close of the ninth day of the funeral, when the crowd is gone, and
the doors are closed, and the evening shadows begin to fall upon chapel
and altar, and the votive tapers twinkle like dim stars through the
gathering gloom, the sarcophagus is opened, the coffin taken out and
examined and then carried down to the vault, the newly dead is raised to
his temporary resting-place, and amid a silence seldom broken by
lamentation the apostolic notary writes by flickering torchlight that
once more the successor of the throne has become the successor of the
grave.

Then begins the conclave. Each cardinal comes in state with his two
_conclavistas_, or conclave-companions, usually prelates, and always
chosen with a view to the services they may be able to render in the
approaching struggle; the mass of the Holy Spirit is solemnly said, if
not always devoutly listen