Rome, December 8 [1869]
We were to be called at 4:30, but I was up at 4, and there were sounds of preparation all round, and in the streets below. It rained, and the sky was black as ink. It is madness to be up so early; but, considering the infrequency of General Councils, it can be no great hardship to get up at 4 once in three centuries. The order had gone forth, and had been posted all over Rome, that no carriage lower than episcopal rank would be permitted on the Bridge of St. Angelo after 6 o’clock. Not to be embarrassed in the race, I had behaved with much brutality to several parties, including a most agreeable widow lady, who offered to share carriages, and even give us seats. Races in couples are a delusion and a snare. My own people, I could trust. At 5 o’clock, all the church bells began clanging through the thickest darkness, and the streets were lively. In a few minutes, we were at breakfast. The waiters were most loyal, as I always find them here. Everything was ready, except that the hens had not yet laid their eggs. However, when the big bell of St. Peter’s began to boom, we began to move. Already we knew that, from all the streets converging on St. Angelo, there were rolling processions of ladies who had heaped upon their heads and shoulders all the black they could find in their boxes. So, we were soon downstairs and off. We counted thirty empty carriages coming back before we got to the bridge. It was raining heavily, and the wheels churned up yellow mud which, the day before, I saw men laying down in the form of sand that sea nymphs might have danced upon.
In ten minutes, we were put into the dry at the foot of the ascent leading to the Scala Regia; but there was no lingering there. We had to dash through the rain to St. Peter’s, which was not yet open. Some hundreds had huddled themselves at the most likely entrances, seeking such protection as the huge pillars and cornices would give; but that was not much. Carriages were rolling in fast; the steps and slope seemed alive with moving figures; they closed in upon us and, in a few minutes, we were imbedded in a mass of human beings – I, half dozing, and with a sort of dead remembrance that I was in Rome, and at St. Peter’s. Soon after 6, the iron doors were opened, and we all pressed into the vestibule, in utter darkness, with a sensation of columns of soldiers marching in upon us. Some good provident souls had brought bits of taper, which they lighted, and they showed us where we were; indeed, we could see the roof. A regiment of soldiers came in and, by the light of the two tapers, displayed the length of the vestibule. You know it would easily hold two regiments, and a respectable insurrection, besides. However, it became pretty full. We had to bide our time, and be thankful we were out of the rain. In about half an hour, the two usual doors were simultaneously opened and, immediately, there was a stream of black runners up the nave, which was just darkness visible. But for the hundred lamps always burning over the tomb of St. Peter, and some unusual lights about the famous bronze statue, one could not have told the church from a barn. As we were, all of us, half walking, half running, I saw some ordinary-looking fellows drop on their knees as they passed the chapel on the right, where there were lights, and which had the usual claim to the devotion of good Catholics.
From: Letters from Rome on the Occasion of the Ecumenical Council, 1869-1870 by Thomas Mozley; 2 volumes (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1891), 1:73-75.
The Rev. Thomas Mozley (1806-1893) was an Anglican priest who, while he sympathized, in some respects, with the Oxford Movement, did not, himself, make the move to Roman Catholicism. He was in Rome during the meetings which have come to be called the First Vatican Council (Vatican I). Not being Roman Catholic, he was unable to attend the actual sessions of the council. However, he wrote many letters to the London Times, acting as an official correspondent. These letters, collected and published in book form in 1891, give his personal perspective on the happenings in Rome during Vatican I – as seen from the outside, and as reported by a bemused and amused outsider.
