Cardinal
Boccanera, who only came to St. Peter's and the Vatican on the days when
his functions required his presence there. However, he recognised
Cardinal Sanguinetti, who, broad and sturdy and red of face, was talking
in a loud voice to Baron de Fouras. And Nani, with his obliging air,
stepped up again to point out two other Eminences who were high and
mighty personages--the Cardinal Vicar, a short, fat man, with a feverish
countenance scorched by ambition, and the Cardinal Secretary, who was
robust and bony, fashioned as with a hatchet, suggesting a romantic type
of Sicilian bandit, who, to other courses, had preferred the discreet,
smiling diplomacy of the Church. A few steps further on, and quite alone,
the Grand Penitentiary, silent and seemingly suffering, showed his grey,
lean, ascetic profile.

Noon had struck. There was a false alert, a burst of emotion, which swept
in like a wave from the other halls. But it was merely the ushers opening
a passage for the _cortege_. Then, all at once, acclamations arose in the
first hall, gathered volume, and drew nearer. This time it was the
_cortege_ itself. First came a detachment of the Swiss Guard in undress,
headed by a sergeant; then a party of chair-bearers in red; and next the
domestic prelates, including the four _Camerieri segreti partecipanti_.
And finally, between two rows of Noble Guards, in semi-gala uniforms,
walked the Holy Father, alone, smiling a pale smile, and slowly blessing
the pilgrims on either hand. In his wake the clamour which had risen in
the other apartments swept into the Hall of Beatifications with the
violence of delirious love; and, under his slender, white, benedictive
hand, all those distracted creatures fell upon both knees, nought
remaining but the prostration of a devout multitude, overwhelmed, as it
were, by the apparition of its god.

Quivering, carried away, Pierre had knelt like the others. Ah! that
omnipotence, that irresistible contagion of faith, of the redoubtable
current from the spheres beyond, increased tenfold by a _scenario_ and a
pomp of sovereign grandeur! Profound silence fell when Leo XIII was
seated on the throne surrounded by the cardinals and his court; and then
the ceremony proceeded according to rite and usage. First a bishop spoke,
kneeling and laying the homage of the faithful of all Christendom at his
Holiness's feet. The President of the Committee, Baron de Fouras,
followed, remaining erect whilst he read a l