Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 1/Letter 44

MISS CHARLOTTE EDGEWORTH to C.S. EDGEWORTH. PARIS, Feb. 21, 1803.

We went yesterday to see the consecration of a Bishop at Nôtre Dame, and here I endured with satisfaction most intense cold for three hours, and saw a solemn ridiculous ceremony, and heard music that went through me: I could not have believed that sounds could have been so fine: the alternate sounds of voices and the organ, or both together, and then the faint, distant murmur of prayers: each peal so much in harmony as to appear like one note beginning softly, rising, rising, rising,&mdash;then dying slowly off. There was one man whose voice was so loud, so full and clear, that it was equal to the voices of three men. The church itself is very fine: we were placed so as to see below us the whole ceremony. The solemnity of the manner in which they walked, their all being dressed alike, and differently from the rest of the people, rendered these priests a new set of beings. The ceremony appeared particularly ridiculous, as we could not hear a word that was said, because the church is so large, and we were at too great a distance, and all we could see was a Bishop dressing or undressing, or lying on the ground! The Archbishop of Paris, who performed the chief part of the ceremony, is a man about eighty years of age, yet he had the strength to go through the fatigue which such a ceremony requires for three hours together in very great cold, and every action was performed with as much firmness as a man of fifty could do it, and there was but one part which he left out,&mdash;the walking round along with the other bishops with the cross borne before them. We were told that he has often gone through similar fatigue, and in the evening, or an hour after, amused a company at dinner with cheerful, witty conversation: he is not a man of letters, but he has abilities and knowledge of the world. All these men were remarkably tall and fine-looking, some very venerable: there were about sixty assembled. It appears extraordinary that there should not be one little or mean-looking among a set of people who are not like soldiers chosen for their height, and as they must have come from different parts of France. I think there is a greater variety of sizes among the French than among us: if all the people who stand in the street of Edgeworthstown every Sunday were Frenchmen, you would see ten remarkably little for one that you see there, and ten remarkably tall. I think there are more remarkably tall men in Ireland than in England. Maria is writing a story, and has a little table by the fire, at which she sits as she used to do at Edgeworthstown for half an hour together without stirring, with her pen in her hand; then she scribbles on very fast. My father intends to present his lock, with a paper giving some account of it, by way of introduction to the society of which he is a member, La Société pour encourager les arts et metiérs. I suppose you see in the newspapers that the ancient Academy is again established under the name of the Institute?