A VISIT TO THE VATICAN.

New Zealand Mail, 17 September 1902, Page 18

A VISIT TO THE VATICAN.

(By a Rome Correspondent.)

Tho public entrance to the Vatican, for museums and State palace alike, lies at the top of the colonnade as you go up tho courtyard past tho tall fountains, and to the right of tho facade of St. Peter’s. At tho door stand the Pope’s Swiss Guards—a quaint mixture of the mediaeval and the modern. For their uniforms are slashed red, yellow and black, with puffed sleeves and kneebreeches, and they" shoulder twentieth century rifles. There are also persons at the door who chant “Want a guide, sir?” exactly like their brethren on the Paris boulevards. But if the visitor wears a top hat the guides leave him to ask his way of the Swiss Guards. For no one iu Pome in these sultry days wears a topper unless lie is paying 9, visit of state. And tho state and ceremony of the Vatican are things to awe even Americans, let alone an Englishman of hereditary constitutional instincts. I was furnished with a letter of introductinon to his Eminence the Most Reverend Cardinal X. Even as I asked my way of one of the red and yellow Guards, the cold stateliness of the Roman palace, the chill of aged institutions and hoary etiquette fell and iced me through all my suffocating _ frock coat and topper. The Vatican is the very stronghold of ceremony.

THE ELOQUENCE OF SILENCE. The red and yellow guard, without ypeaking, pointed towards a door on tho right-hand side of the corridor leading to a tremendous marble staircase. His silence almost made me wonder whether I ought not to have addressed my question in dumb show. I was also quite undecided whether I ought to take my hat off to him or merely touch it—a doubt which ended in a kind of ungraceful wave of the hand, suggestive of nothing more solemn than saying good-bye to a friend on the steps of one’s club. As I went up the marble staircase, walled with exquisite panels of many-coloured marbles, and protected with broad banisters of white marble, I met a few priests, who gravely lifted their hats to me. Guards in blue uniforms with silver facings stood at the top of the stairs, and saluted me, as I passed by them into a large sunny courtyard, round which most of tho cardinals resident in the Vatican have their rooms. AN IMPRESSIVE SIGHT.

Several persons were crossing and recrossing the courtyard—petitioners, messengers, visitors like myself with introductions, priests, barefooted monks, eonerries. guards. chamberlains. There was neither hurry nor bustle. A groat dignified, splendid machine, built of the intellects of ages, moved slowly along the path of its self-ap-pointed duties. The Temporal Power may be, most probably is, a dream that can never be realised. But the fact of the Spiritual Power is potent and impressive beyond words. In this grave courtyard one felt that one was standing in tho centre of a limitless Empire. The blue and silver Guards guided me to a groat antechamber, or, rather, double antechamber, for there are usually two or even three rooms before the door of the Cardinal’s cabinet. In the outer room an ordinary lackey was on Vity, and he passed rne over to his Eminence’s chamberlain —a tall priest, plump, and of jovial mien, but a great stickler, I soon observed, for etiquette. And as there were other visitors to pass before me, I bad time to observe this fearsome etiquette. The main rule, however, is simple enough. For an audience with the Pop© one must wear dress clothes, no matter at what time of day one is presented. A RIGID ETIQUETTE.

To visit a Cardinal it is certainly the politest thing to sport dress clothes, but a frock coat and top hat are well enough; while for anything but the first introductory visit to a Monsignere. when tails and toppers are demanded. an ordinary dark suit is all that etiquette demands. Sticks are never taken into the presence of any great man, and it is even wiser to leave them altogether outside the Vatican. And similarly, officers leave their swords in tho an tech amber before being admitted to the Vatican. Buf tho hardest duty to carry out properly is that which belongs to the leave-taking. His Eminence stands at the door of his cabinet till the visitor has gone a few steps down the antechamber; and then the latter must turn rouhd and bow low. tlio Cardinal bowing also. Afterwards, precisely the same exchange of bows at five paces has to be gone through with the chamberlain. To turn round and bow gracefully in the middle of an exit is the most difficult thing imaginable. But it must be done, and well done, or the visitor is stamped as mannerless. Incidentally, one remarks that the dwellers in the Vatican are a most polyglot set of men. I heard French and Dalian and German spoken fluently in the antechamber. and the ehamberlain who took my card spoke excellent English. WITH THE CARDINAL. The last of the visitors had made bis obeisance, and I was bailed into his Eminence’s cabinet. It was a. tall, noble room, adorned \vith exquisite an-

tiquo furniture, the walls hung with “Old Masters.” It bore witness to its service as a statesman’s study in the masses of papers upon the tables, in the cabinet against tho walls. Yet the sense of formality which broods over all the outer courts and halls of the Vatican was missing here. So much is' due to tho cordial way in which Cardinal X. receives his visitors. He wore a cassock trimmed with scarlet braid, and scqrlet sash with tasselled ends round his waist. A little scarlet skull-cap crowned the closely-cut .hair, and the great cardinal’s ring sparkled on his hand. The whole dress was simple, but exactly calculated to set off to perfection his tall, dignified figure and pale, keen face. Come to the Vatican without proper introduction, and though you will meet with the utmost politeness, and even be admitted to see any cardinal whoso name you may remember, yon remain still an outsider, to be treated with infinite courtesy, but to.bo held at arm’s length. Bring with you a few words on a slip of paper to accredit you, and though the first visit is naturally short and perfunctory, you are warmly received, cordially questioned and heard, and dismissed with an injunction not to fail to return at any need in which your host may help you. But do not he emboldened to ask indiscreet questions. By so doing you again become the outsider, and the pall of formality falls coldly on you.