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Two or three priests, with handsome vestments white embroidered in gold were officiating, and the choir boys wore their red petticoats soutanes trimmed with lace and red shoes and caps. Just inside the chancel sat the "communiants" fifty boys and girls. With them sat about half a dozen smaller girls also in white, with wreaths of white roses.
Behind them came two little acolytes, fair as angels, swinging their golden incense lamps; then followed six choir boys, chanting the Mass, like veritable della Robbias, in their red soutanes and exquisite, white, lace surplices. Next were the clergy, in robes of cloth of gold and rare Flemish lace, carrying the Host under a purple velvet canopy.
The curé, with his choir boys in their little short white soutanes, red petticoats and red shoes, was just coming out of the sacristy and the procession was appearing at the bottom of the church. First came the Mayor in a dress coat and white cravat the "Adjoint" and one of the municipal council just behind, then the banner rather a heavy one, four men carried it.
Since the inventories ordered by the government in all the churches, most of the people have taken away their gifts in the way of vestments, soutanes, vases, etc., and the red soutanes, shoes and caps, with a handsome white satin embroidered vestment that C. gave the church when she was married, are carefully folded and put away in a safe place out of the church until better times should come.
It was carried by two "enfants de choeur," preceded by the beadle with his cocked hat and staff and followed by two small girls with lighted tapers. The "enfants de choeur" were not in their festal attire of red soutanes and red shoes only in plain black.
It was getting late, and a fading light filtered through the bare interwoven branches of the planes. The shadows were lengthening in the avenues and grass-bordered paths where the seminarists had been walking in twos and threes among the playing children. They were gone now, the grave-faced young men in their black soutanes and broad beaver hats; all the people were gone. "O Pasquina! Birichina!"
They were not kneeling, but stood reverently, with bowed heads, when the curé passed. It was a pretty sight the kneeling figures, the flower-covered graves, the little procession winding in and out among the tombstones, the white soutanes of the boys shining in the sun and not a sound except the droning of the chaunts.
When we, the nuns, began to push, to get near the image, one after the other in a line endlessly long, they looked upon us with impatience. One woman said: 'These soutanes should make room for us, it is not their husbands, it is our husbands', our sons' heads, which will be exposed to the guns."
While our most illustrious Ludovico went bird-hunting with his bow along its banks, the two bishops and I formed a plan to ascend the hill to discover the source of the brook, for we were not very far from the top of the mountain. Taking up our soutanes, therefore, and following the river-bed, we found a cavern incessantly supplied by dropping water.
Such animosity as was shown against the priesthood emanated from some of the public clubs where the future Communards perorated. It was only as time went on, and the defence grew more and more hopeless, that Trochu himself was denounced as a cagot and a souteneur de soutanes; and not until the Commune did the Extremists give full rein to their hatred of the Church and its ministers.
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