[Illustration: Last Benediction of Pope Pius IX. from the Balcony of St. Peter's.]
We went back to the Piazza always at night to see the "Girandola" fireworks, and there was almost the same crowd waiting for the first silvery light to appear on the façade of St. Peter's. It was marvellous to see the lines of light spread all over the enormous mass of stone, running around all the cupolas and statues like a trail of silver, in such quantities that the stone almost disappeared, and the church seemed made of light--quite beautiful. The illumination lasted a long time--gold light came after the silver, and I think it was perhaps more striking when they began to go out one by one, leaving great spaces in darkness--then one saw what an enormous edifice it was.
I have written you a volume--but every turn here recalls old, happy days--"Roma com'era"--and I must come back to the present and our farewell dinner at the Noailles'.
We were a small party--all the French Embassy, the Duc de Ripalda, the Chilian Minister and his wife, Maffel, Visconti Venosta, and Lanciani. W. and Noailles retired to the fumoir and talked politics hard. We shall soon be back in the thick of it now, and W. will take his place again in the Senate. It will seem funny to be quietly settled in the rue Dumont d'Urville--riding in the Bois in the morning and driving over to the Senate in the afternoon, with the boy, to get W. Ripalda and I had a long talk. He tells me he still holds the same opinion about American women--they are the prettiest and most attractive in the world. There is something--he doesn't know what--that makes them different from all the others. I asked him if he remembered Antoinette Polk; to which he promptly replied, "Ah, qu'elle était belle--une déesse." I must tell her how she lives in his old memory. I always find Noailles pleasant--so grand seigneur.
We found all sorts of cards and invitations when we came in, and a surprise for me from Father Smith which pleased me greatly, a silver medal of Leo XIII. in a case. It is about the size of a five-franc piece--rather larger if anything, and so like, the small head, and fine, sharply cut features, such a nice note, too, from Father Smith; he was very glad to be able to offer me something which he knew I would prize, and that it wasn't necessary to be of the same religion to admire and appreciate a great intellect and a good man. I am very proud of my two pictures, and shall show them triumphantly to some of my Catholic friends and relations who can't understand a Protestant and a heretic caring for such souvenirs.