The attendant, meanwhile, had informed us that my wife could not be
admitted to the chapel in her bonnet, and that I myself could not enter
at all, for lack of a dress-coat; so my wife took off her bonnet, and,
covering her head with her black lace veil, was readily let in, while I
remained in the Sala Regia, with several other gentlemen, who found
themselves in the same predicament as I was. There was a wonderful
variety of costume to be seen and studied among the persons around me,
comprising garbs that have been elsewhere laid aside for at least three
centuries,--the broad, plaited, double ruff, and black velvet cloak,
doublet, trunk-breeches, and sword of Queen Elizabeth's time,--the papal
guard, in their striped and party-colored dress as before described,
looking not a little like harlequins; other soldiers in helmets and
jackboots; French officers of various uniform; monks and priests;
attendants in old-fashioned and gorgeous livery; gentlemen, some in black
dress-coats and pantaloons, others in wide-awake hats and tweed
overcoats; and a few ladies in the prescribed costume of black; so that,
in any other country, the scene might have been taken for a fancy ball.
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