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,--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,--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, [Footnote: Miss Edgeworth made a sketch for the story
of _Madame de Fleury_ about this time, but did not finish it till long
afterwards. The incident of the locked-up children was told to her by
Madame de Pastoret, to whom it happened, and Maria took the name De
Fleury from M. de Pastoret's country house, the Château de Fleury.] 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?
MRS. EDGEWORTH _to_ MRS. MARY SNEYD.