Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/195

Rh in them was forbidden for several days under pain of forfeiture.

On the 1st of February all the religious orders, brotherhoods, and other clergy, together with the deacons, assembled in the atrium of the cathedral, with crosses and candles, and the procession was formed. Members of the brotherhood of San Pedro, with burning lights, and red stoles over their surplices, carried the images of San Pedro and of Our Lady of Assumption, the patron of the church. They were followed by the chapter of the cathedral, amongst whom rode thirty knights of the military orders, the dean Alonso de Cuevas Dávalos with the holy sacrament, the members of the university, the city authorities, the tribunals, the officials of the contadurias, treasury, and audiencia; the viceroy Alburquerque with his attendants, all richly attired, coming last. When the priest carrying the host reached the cathedral, the seven doors were opened, the holy sacrament was placed in the ciborium, and after prayers had been said the procession dispersed. Fireworks around the church and on the tower, together with a general illumination of the city, concluded the preliminary festival.

The following day the cathedral was opened to the public, but no mass was said during the early hours. At ten o'clock the viceroy arrived, accompanied by the university, audiencia, tribunals, and city council. He was received at the main entrance by the chapter, and conducted amid the ringing of bells into the church, while the te deum was being chanted. Refusing the offered cushion he kneeled down, repeated his prayers, kissed the first steps of the presbytery, and was then led to his seat, close to which, though separate, were those of his consort and his daughter. After a procession in the cathedral with lighted tapers, divine services began simultaneously in the four different chapels into which the church had been