With whatever magnificence of pageantry the ceremonies of the Baptism
and Coronation of the infant Prince of Galilee were surrounded--and
under the tutelage of Venice and the auspices of Cyprus which aspired to
the splendor of an Eastern Empire, there could be nothing lacking--there
were nobler aspects of that brilliant festival which those who witnessed
never forgot.
The Embassies which had been despatched to all friendly courts had
returned with deputations of rejoicing; a fleet from Venice and ships
from the East had brought costly gifts of welcome and men, high in
dignity, charged to represent their governments: and the Admiral
Morenigo, with two Provveditori had arrived to stand sponsors for the
Grandson of the Republic. In the vast banquet-hall of the palace,
decorated with all its ancient heraldic devices and trophies of Crusades
and Eastern victories, the Coronation Feast was spread, where presently
the knights of the noblest families of the kingdom would count it an
honor to serve: and the splendid city of Famagosta was gay with the
suites and banners of foreign guests.
But, for all that, it was the _People's Day_--for the young Queen had
willed it so.
"Let proclamation be made throughout the land," she had said, "that all,
of every degree, may share the festivities, and come to pay their homage
to the infant King. And bid the mothers bring their little ones."
The people thronged from far and near until Famagosta could hold no
more; from Nikosia, from Larnaca and Limasol and Kerynea and other
cities and districts of Cyprus, came great deputations of burghers, with
those peasants from the nearer _casals_ and hamlets whom the invitation
of their gracious Sovereign Lady had reached and who were not restrained
by the unwillingness of their nobles: for there were still some among
the ancient families of the island who looked with disfavor upon Janus
and his successors.
The Queen had not shown herself to the people since the birth of her
little son; and they knelt along her pathway as she passed across the
Piazza San Nicolo, from the palace to the Duomo, holding their children
up that she might bless them--for it was a miracle! She had come back
from Death's door to rule and bless their land!
"Sancta Maria!"
Before her on the golden cushion of state were borne the sceptre and the
quaint Royal Crown of Cyprus of the time of their first king, Guy de
Lusignan--heavy and far too rough for her delicate brows to endure; and
the Councillors and Counts of the kingdom, the knights and nobles and
ladies of the court made a brave array. But the people,--the
peasants,--half-dazed by their unaccustomed nearness to such
magnificence, not feeling as did the people of Venice that the fetes of
the kingdom were meant for them, had looked on stolidly at all the
bravery of the passing procession and at the glitter of the
insignia,--showing no sign of greeting until a white, girlish figure
stood under the palace portal.
"_Panagia mou!_ Holy Virgin!" The familiar ejaculation came,
half-suppressed, in a whisper of awe, from hundreds of voices. For the
words of the Cyprian peasant were few, and this appeal to their most
revered image of the Virgin sufficed for the expression of their deepest
emotions. Was it, in truth their Queen--or the blessed Madonna herself,
who came forth from the palace arches in her sweeping robes, white and
gleaming, her royal mantle of cloth of gold and her jewelled crown--like
the beautiful ivory image in the Duomo of Santa Croce?--Very pale and
fair and sad she was, yet with a smile in her eyes, as she turned from
side to side to answer their greetings, which now broke forth
rapturously.
The color flushed her pale face when their cries of loyalty arose, and
she turned and took the little Prince of Galilee from her Eccellenza,
the Royal Governess the Dama Margherita de Iblin, holding him high,
close-pressed to her cheek for all the people to see, with a great glory
of mother-love in her shining eyes. They rent the air with their sobs
and shouts.
The child lay smiling on his mother's arm--serene and very beautiful; it
was in truth a holy picture.
The populace forgot that it was their Queen; as never before, that any
distance of caste lay between them--they forgot their native awkwardness
and dread of the great ones--they thronged nearer, unafraid--only to
touch her--to kiss some hem of her floating garments--to look in the
face of the little child who was to be their King!
And when the mother and the child were gone into the shadows of the
Duomo, so thronged with noble guests and with all the splendid Hierarchy
of Cyprus that there was scarce room for the royal procession to pass to
the High-Altar beyond the tomb of Janus, the hearts of the people in the
Piazza joined in the chorus of love and benediction of the choirs
within, as, with new hints of devotion in their patient faces, they
folded their own little ones closer with some vague, struggling,
incomprehensible sense of aspiration--they were one with their Royal
Lady and the Blessed Madonna, in the sacred mystery of Motherhood.
In the spacious apse the Hierarchy and the Royal Court were ranged for
the ceremonial, and back of them a low three-arched opening at one side
of the apse, supported on columns of polished porphyry clasped with
grotesquely hammered copper, gave glimpses of palms waving in the great
Court of the Tombs; gave glimpses also of the Monks of Troodos who had
come hither with all their numbers, to witness the solemn services of
the dedication of their infant king to his high trust.
And just within the portal, in strange contrast to the pomp of his
surroundings, stood Hagios Johannes Lampadisti, "the Illumined"--a wild,
stern figure, in his sombre robes--unchanged for any highest
festival--with the symbol of solemn sacrifice on his breast, beyond all
thought of admiration or of reproach for the splendor about him, his
prophetic gaze fastened on the face of the Queen with imperious
intensity--one hand slightly extended towards her, holding out his cross
of thorns.
When the solemn rites were over and the Queen had received her child
again from the arms of the Archbishop of Nikosia, Hagios Johannes,
never moving his eyes from her face came forward with slow movements,
and Caterina, with a sudden, uncontrollable impulse, lifting her eyes
beheld the mystic gaze of Hagios Johannes and knelt down before the
altar, straining her baby close to her breast.
"Dear Christ in Heaven!" she cried, in the dialect of the people. "I
give him to Thee!--I give _my All_ to Thee! He and I, we will live for
Thee; and for this People of Cyprus!--so Thou and the Blessed Mother be
our helpers."
The Queen's Councillors in their splendid robes of office, looked in
amazement to see their Queen forget her state in such a presence, and
outrage every precedent by crying out in the unlearned language of the
people, before this stately company; and the face of the dignified
Primate flamed with wrath at this unseemliness. But Caterina, noting
nothing, turned to receive their homage for the infant King, for whom as
by an inspiration, she had publicly offered these vows, from the depths
of her heart.
As the procession moved out into the sunshine of the Piazza, she held
the child up again to the eager, waiting throng--the light gleaming on
the tiny coronet above his baby-cap as she spread out his dimpled hands
with a motion of welcome, saying quite simply:
"This is your King. Love him, dear people of Cyprus!"
And she would not give the infant back to the Royal Governess, but
carried him herself in her own arms across the Piazza, held up for the
people to see--which never before had a queen of Cyprus been known to
do. But there was a light in her face which silenced those who would
have spoken of ways more seemly, and it was a triumphal procession to
the palace. But she paused before the peristyle, turning to face the
people again.
"There is welcome for every Cypriote," she said, "men, women and little
children, who come this day to pay homage to their infant King; and good
cheer in the palace for all," and signing to the attendants that they
should be made to enter she passed in, smiling, before them.
The child lay in his cradle in the splendid _Sala Regia_, under the
canopy blazoned with the arms of Cyprus--a little, helpless, smiling
child--guarded by the Councillors and Counts of the kingdom; and near
him stood the Queen with all her court, who for this day only had put
off their mourning that no suggestion of gloom nor any hint of evil omen
might shadow the royal baptismal and coronation fetes. The ladies were
dazzling in gems and heirlooms of broideries and brocades; the knights
and barons of the realm were glittering with orders--here and there,
above his costly armor, one showed the red cross of the Crusade, or wore
the emblem of the Knights of San Giovanni. But the people, who never
before had entered those palace doors, came surging--not afraid--nor
shrinking from the novelty and splendor nor curious for it; they came to
pledge their fealty to the baby-prince--a little child like their
own--whose gentle mother asked their love--than which no monarch may
bring a gift more royal.