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-4-

The crowd is now completely silent, in deep, impenetrable, keen silence and anguish. It is the hushed silence of events, the sublime part of which surpasses all imagination, the silence of absolute meditation. The flags of societies, drawn up there, are bent forwards, all heads are uncovered, all lips are still as if the owners were dumb, the great bell alone is tolling out untired, in a continued drone, while before the great space , the procession slowly winds , awaiting the Cardinal Bishop's blessing.
 The hour is arrived. The doors of the cathedral open and give passage to the clergy accompanying the primate . Then, as if to render the ceremony still more imposing , all the bells boom out while slowly, surrounded by assistants and chapter, the Cardinal , wearing a cope of dark velvet covered with heavy glittering embroidery on his sacerdotal vestments, golden miter on his head, and gold crosier in his hand, steps down on the first landing of the monumental porch.
 On the sides, forming a frame, the moving sea of the crowd , always tragically silent, and looking in a fixed strained way on this painful scene , either on the cardinal officiating, who, in the midst of his clergy, remains perfectly motionless , in an attitude of deep mediation, his glance fixed on each of the canons that, one by one, were set in motion , in the some order in which they had arrived, while , in the distant the sound of trumpets burst out anew , accentuated by the strains of other funeral marches.
 Over all, this soft azure , impenetrable and deep, from which poured intense light and which cast an aureole like an apotheosis on the glorious remains of the heroic martyrs.
 Then the crowd, vibrating still from the immense emotion that thrilled it to the very heart, in a deep throb, slowly dispersed without haste as if it would wish to prolong the anguish of silence in which it had been held with such deep respect and so to say instinctively during the thrilling and heart-rending ceremony !......

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