The Bishops of Vercelli and Cremona had
offered a robe of silver brocade studded with coral and turquoises, the
devout Princess Clotilda of Savoy an emerald necklace, the Bishop of
Pianura a marvellous veil of rose-point made in a Flemish convent; while
on the statue's brow rested the Duke's jewelled diadem.
The Duke himself, seated in his tribune above the choir, observed the
scene with a renewed appreciation of the Church's unfailing dramatic
instinct. At first he saw in the spectacle only this outer and symbolic
side, of which the mere sensuous beauty had always deeply moved him; but
as he watched the effect produced on the great throng filling the
aisles, he began to see that this external splendour was but the veil
before the sanctuary, and to realise what de Crucis meant when he spoke
of the deep hold of the Church upon the people. Every colour, every
gesture, every word and note of music that made up the texture of the
gorgeous ceremonial might indeed seem part of a long-studied and
astutely-planned effect. Yet each had its root in some instinct of the
heart, some natural development of the inner life, so that they were in
fact not the cunningly-adjusted fragments of an arbitrary pattern but
the inseparable fibres of a living organism. It was Odo's misfortune to
see too far ahead on the road along which his destiny was urging him. As
he sat there, face to face with the people he was trying to lead, he
heard above the music of the mass and the chant of the kneeling throng
an echo of the question that Don Gervaso had once put to him:--"If you
take Christ from the people, what have you to give them instead?"
He was roused by a burst of silver clarions.
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