three. This is a religious drama, and when not exaggerated-by the action and grimaces of the preachers, and the tawdry scenery of the churches to represent Calvary-into a burlesque, is solemn and impressive.

The service of the Tre Ore is divided into seven acts, iounded upon the seven supposed speeches of Christ upon the Cross, at each one of which the Roman Catholics believe that a dagger entered the heart of his mother. She is called, on that account, "Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows," and painted, as is often seen in churches and shrines, with a bloody heart on her breast, with seven daggers stuck around it.

and richest in Rome. His sermon was decidedly dramatic, both in language and accessories; but much less so than one might expect from the Roman taste. The style and arguments were admirably calculated to arouse the languid devotion of his flock, who appeared fully impressed with the solemn event they had assembled to commemorate. This immense church was crowded with worshipers.

In the evening I drove to the Hospital of the Trinitá de Pellegrine, to witness the washing of the feet and feeding of pilgrims by the nobles of Rome. This immense building has accommodation for five thousand pilgrims, who are here graThe preacher I heard was a Jesuit, at the tuitously fed and lodged for three days during church of that order, the most gaudily decorated | Holy Week. The washing and feeding here was

no farce, whatever may have been the motives | ous, however, and, as a matter of curiosity to see that induced these acts of humility.. Roman how far the Church of Rome carries its typical gentlemen and nobles, in the garb of domestics, mysteries, worth noticing. The converted Jews, washed and waited upon these dirtiest of all mor- if any-Turks are considered a greater glorytals with the utmost zeal and apparent cheerful- are baptized early in the morning at St. John in ness-the bounty being, as I was informed, so Lateran. After this, an ordination of priestsmany days' indulgence to each. in which several long hours are occupied in rites sufficiently puerile and wearisome to make one doubt the sanity of the performers. At the Sistine Chapel, we have the blessing of the fire and incense, and the blessing of the paschal candle, by a deacon dressed in white, to represent the angel announcing the resurrection. This candle is of immense size, and pierced with five holes in the form of a cross, to represent the five principal

In the female wards, I was told by the ladies that they saw some of the fairest and noblest of Rome's aristocracy on their knees, scrubbing away at feet that had needed ablution for many weeks previous At supper they attended them as humbly as if they had been bred to serve, and even the loveliest among them took the filthy babies from their mothers' arms, and nursed them as tenderly as they would have nursed their own-wounds of our Saviour. Five grains of incense while their hungry mothers ate.

On this evening there is a performance at some of the churches of another manner of mortifying the flesh. This is the self-flagellation of penitents, who are clad in vestments of coarse dark cloth, which completely disguises them, leaving only holes for their eyes. After an exhortation from a friar, the lights are extinguished and scourges distributed. Of course it is impossible to tell how far the ceremony is a farce or penance. At all events the scourging and wailing sound like earnest, while the dismal chanting of the monks does not tend to enliven the scene, which lasts about half an hour, when all depart with the satisfaction of having performed a meritorious action.

The ceremonies of Saturday attract the attention of few besides the actors. They are numer

are placed in these holes, as emblematic of embalming. At this season, too, there is a general blessing and sprinkling of holy water in private houses by priests, who gratefully receive the current coin of the realm in return for their efficacious benedictions. Even the brutes come in for a share of this pious labor, but this is somewhat later, on the anniversary of their guardian Saint Anthony. After each sprinkling from the sacred brush, the priest repeats in Latin, "By the intercession of the blessed Anthony, these animals are delivered from evil, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen!"

Easter-Sunday is the grandest festival of the year. To celebrate the Resurrection, the Roman Church puts on all her pomp and pageantry. The Pope performs high mass at St. Peter's. This occurs but on two other festivals during the year,

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

gazed anxiously up to the balcony, where the
Holy Father was to appear.
After considerable

delay he made his appearance, and in an audible
prayer invoked the usual blessing. The soldiers

knelt, in obedience to the order of their superiors.

What must have been the feelings of those disciplined republicans of skeptical France, thus humiliated before an old man whose very existence in Rome was owing to their arms, it is easy to conceive. I noticed that very few of the Romans knelt, and many seemed careless about uncovering their heads. The ceremony had evidently outlived its spirit, or else Pius IX. was unloved in his own capital.

ness,

BY JOHN S. C. ABBOTT.

THE ABDICATION.

The

HILE Napoleon, before the dawn of the dark and lurid morning of the 1st of April, was directing his melancholy steps toward Fontainebleau, his faithful embassador, Caulaincourt, was galloping once more toward Paris. deep obscurity of the night was partially mitigated by the fires of the bivouacs which glimmered, in a vast semicircle, around the city. The road which Caulaincourt traversed was crowded with officers, soldiers, and fugitives, retiring before the triumphant army of the invaders. He was often recognized, and groups collected around him, inquiring, with the most affectionate anxiety,

"Where is the Emperor? We fought for him till night came on. If he lives, let him but appear. Let us know his wishes. Let him lead us back to Paris. The enemy shall never enter its walls but over the dead body of the last French soldier. If he is dead, let us know it, and lead us against the enemy. We will avenge his fall."

The illumination of St. Peter's and the fireworks have been too often described to require further allusion. They are the terminating and most agreeable of the spectacles of the Holy Week. St. Peter's shines from out the surrounding darkness a colossal beacon of light; thousands of globes and stars mark its giant outline in vivid brightwhile high above all rises the illuminated cross, piercing with its bright rays the dark shadows of night. Were the heads of the Roman Church thus to illumine the moral darkness of the world, she should remain for all time as conspicuous for her piety as St. Peter's appears from Universal enthusiasm and devotion inspired artificial splendor. While thinking thus, as I the troops, who, be it remembered, were the peogazed on the beautiful spectacle a bright star came ple; for the conscription to which France had twinkling out of the cloudy obscurity, and took been compelled to resort by the unrelenting asits place high and serene in the firmament, shed-saults of its foes, had gathered recruits from all ding its soft and lucid light in steady rays through the villages of the Empire. The veterans of the heavens. This was now, as in the infancy of Marengo, of Austerlitz, and of Friedland, had Christianity, its true emblem. How utterly in- | perished beneath the snows of Russia, or in the significant the borrowed brilliancy of the church appeared beside this single star! Could we see the nightly beauties of the universe, which Providence has made as free to the eye as air to the lungs, rarely, as man exhibits his counterfeit glories, we should turn in disgust from their puny attractions, to wonder and worship at the greatness and goodness of the Author of so celestial a vision. But we gaze in rapture on our own pigmy efforts, and coldly look upon the marvels of nature as the mere truisms of physics.

awful carnage of Leipsic. The youthful soldiers who now surrounded Napoleon with deathless affection, were fresh from the work-shops, the farm-houses, and the saloons of France. They were inspired by that love for the Emperor which they had imbibed at the parental hearth. These faithful followers of the people's devoted friend, war-worn and haggard, with shriveled lips, and bleeding wounds, and tattered garments, and shoes worn from their feet, were seated by the roadside, or wading through the mud, eager only to meet once more their beloved Emperor. Whenever Caulaincourt told them that Napoleon was

with hoarse and weakened voices they shouted, "Vive l'Empereur !" and hastened on to rejoin him. Truly does Colonel Napier say, "the troops idolized Napoleon." Well they might. And to assert that their attachment commenced only when they became soldiers, is to acknowledge that his excellent qualities and greatness of mind turned hatred into devotion the moment he was approached. But Napoleon never was hated by the people of France; he was their own creation, and they loved him so as never monarch was loved before.

I am not at all disposed to find fault with the Roman government for celebrating after this manner-I allude to the fireworks and illumination-alive, and was waiting for them at Fontainebleau, the resurrection of our Saviour. A Christian government does wisely to exalt its Author and celebrate his mission with all possible magnificence. It keeps alive the principles of its origin, and periodically recalls to public mind the memory of events unequaled in their consequences by any others in the history of the human race. In this respect, therefore, I think the Roman Church wise; but in most others connected with the Holy Week, I consider her as degrading mankind and violating the very principles to which it falsely appeals for sanction. As yet we are only upon the threshold of her profitless mummeries. shall barely open the door to a few of the principal falsities with which she deludes the world, and leave my readers who may differ from me in sentiment, to explore further, if they will, for their own edification.

I

As Caulaincourt drew near the city, he found it encircled by the encampments of the Allies. At whatever post he made his appearance he he was sternly repulsed. Orders had been given that no messenger from Napoleon should be permitted to approach the head-quarters of the hos

tile sovereigns. At length the morning gloomily | ander, to protect the imperial monuments from dawned, and a shout of exultation and joy as- destruction, issued a decree taking them under cended from the bivouacs of the Allies, which his care. "The monument in the Place Vencovered all the hills. With the roar of artillery, dôme," said he, "is under the especial safeguard and with gleaming banners, and clarion peals of of the magnanimity of the Emperor Alexander martial music, three hundred thousand men, the and his allies. The statue on its summit will advance guard of a million of invaders, marched not remain there. It will immediately be taken into the humiliated streets of Paris. The masses down." of the people, dejected, looked on in sullen silence. They saw the Bourbon princes, protected by the bayonets of foreigners, coming to resume their sway. The royalists did every thing in their power to get up some semblance of rejoicing, in view of this spectacle of national humiliation. The emissaries of the ancient nobility shouted lustily, "Vive le Roi !" The wives and daughters of the Bourbon partisans rode through the streets in open carriages, scattering smiles on each side of the way, waving white flags, and tossing out to the listless spectators the white cockade of the Bourbons. "Still," says M. Rochefoucauld, “the silence was most dismal." The masses of the people witnessed the degradation of France with rage and despair.

As night approached, these enormous armies of foreign invaders, in numbers apparently numberless, of every variety of language, lineament, and costume, swarmed through all the streets and gardens of the captured metropolis. The Cossacks, in aspect as wild and savage as the wolves which howl through their native wastes, filled the Elysian Fields with their bivouac fires, and danced around them in barbarian orgies.

Alexander, who well knew the exalted character and the lofty purposes of Napoleon, was the only one of these banded kings who manifested any sympathy in his behalf. Though all the rest were ready to crush Napoleon utterly, and to compel the people to receive the Bourbons, he still hesitated. He doubted whether the nation would long submit to rulers thus forced upon them. But a few days ago," said he, "a column of five or six thousand new French troops suffered themselves to be cut in pieces before my eyes, when a single cry of Vive le Roi!" would have saved them."

66

"And things will continue just so," the Abbé de Pradt replied, "until Napoleon is put out of the way; even although he has at this moment a halter round his neck." He alluded, in this last sentence, to the fact, that the Bourbonists, protected from the rage of the populace by the sabres of foreigners, had placed ropes around the statue of Napoleon, to drag it from the Place Vendôme. A nation's love had placed it on that magnificent pedestal; a faction tore it down. The nation has replaced it, and there it will now stand forever.

The efforts of the royalist mob to drag the statue of the Emperor from the column were, at this time, unavailing. As they could not throw it down with their ropes, they covered the statue with a white sheet to conceal it from view. When Napoleon was afterward informed of this fact, he simply remarked, “They did well to conceal from me the sight of their baseness." Alex

During the whole of the day, while these interminable battalions were taking possession of Paris, Caulaincourt sought refuge in a farmhouse in the vicinity of the city. When the evening came, and the uproar of hostile exultation was dying away, he emerged from his retreat, and again resolutely endeavored to penetrate the capital. Every where he was sternly repulsed. In despair he now slowly commenced retracing his steps toward Fontainebleau. But it so happened that, just at this time, he met the carriage of the Grand Duke Constantine, brother of the Emperor Alexander. The Grand Duke instantly recognized Caulaincourt, who had spent much time as an embassador at St. Petersburg. He immediately took him into his carriage, and informed him frankly that Talleyrand, who had now abandoned the fallen fortunes of Napoleon, and had attached himself to the cause of the Bourbons, had inflexibly closed the cabinet of the Allies against every messenger of the Emperor. But Constantine was moved by the entreaties and the noble grief of Caulaincourt. He enveloped him in his own pelisse, and put on his head a Russian cap. Thus disguised, and surrounded by a guard of Cossacks, Caulaincourt, in the shades of the evening, entered the barriers.

The carriage drove directly to the palace of the Elysée. Constantine, requesting the Duke to keep muffled up in his cap and cloak, alighted, carefully shut the door with his own hands, and gave strict orders to the servants to allow no one to approach the carriage. At this moment a neighboring clock struck ten. The apartments of the palace were thronged and brilliantly lighted. The court-yard blazed with lamps. Carriages were continually arriving and departing. The neighing of the horses, the loud talking and joking of the drivers, the wild hurras of the exultant foe, in the distant streets and gardens, presented a festive scene sadly discordant with the anguish which tortured the bosom of Napoleon's faithful embassador. The Emperor of Russia, the King of Prussia, and Prince Schwartzenberg, as representative of the Emperor of Austria, with others, were assembled within the palace in conference.

Hour after hour of the night passed away, and still the Grand Duke did not return. From his concealment Caulaincourt witnessed a vast concourse of diplomatists and generals of all nations, incessantly coming and going. Toward morning the Grand Duke again made his appearance. He informed Caulaincourt that, with great difficulty, he had obtained the consent of Alexander to grant him a private audience. Caulaincourt descended from the carriage, and, still en