20 Sept., 1823.... On Monday, the 1st September, I attended in St. Peter's the last and most solemn requiem-service for the deceased Pope [Pius VII].... I sat in the gallery appointed for the chiefs of the mission and their wives; all other persons, strangers or not... might take their chance as they could in the body of the church, which was on this occasion literally full, and filled with all that variety of costume which gives such a peculiar effect to a Roman crowd. Into the chapel nobody was allowed to enter, except the cardinals and prelates; the service was therefore undisturbed, the buzz of the multitude seeming more distant than it was. After the conclusion of the mass, in which the exquisite requiem of Pittoni was sung in even greater perfection than usual, the demons of absolution was performed five times, by five several cardinals; for Pius the Seventh as Pope, as Cardinal, as Archbishop, as Priest, and as Deacon; the five cardinals went in procession into the body of the church, followed by the papal singers, who performed a passage of a psalm or an anthem, after each absolution. These exquisite pieces of music were heard in perfection where we sate, but were nearly lost to persons who, though near, stood in the confusion of the crowd. The next day, we went to the apartments of Cardinal Consalvi at the Palace of the Consulta, opposite the palace of Monte Cavallo, to see the cardinals walk in procession into conclave.... The cardinals walked two and two, from a little church at the other extremity of the summit of the Quirinal, with one of the Guardia Nobile on each side, and preceded by all the attendants who were to be shut up with them during the conclave, also by the singers of the papal chapel, who performed the Veni Creator Spiritus; the effect of this might have been as fine as possible, but a noisy and dissonant military band at the close of the procession disturbed all. << less