round the gate immediately before the chapel, add greatly to this impression, and makes one imagine that death does not free the captive, and that the myrmidons of the law still hold him in their iron clutches.
But in these days of railway speed we can, dear reader, go from Paris to Palermo without almost feeling the transition too abrupt. We shall there find the other exception in the shape of a sepulchre on a vast scale, where the identity of each body deposited in it is not lost in a ditch into which all are promiscuously thrown. Individualism is a strong feature in it; and the living may, as often as they like, go to contemplate the features of their defunct friends, without having to pass through a file of armed soldiers. Let us enter then, warned, however, of what we are about to see, by the inscription which is placed above the principal entrance.
Still, you must not be either shocked or alarmed. The sepulchral caves of the Capuchins at Palermo, may be regarded as a sort of museum for the benefit of those who would preserve from the worms their bones for posterity. For about 4l. sterling, any one who pleases to do so can be deposited in them. The monks to which they belong are truly cosmopolite, and more than catholic. Provided the above mentioned sum be paid them, admittance is refused to nobody, whether from northern, or southern, eastern or western hemisphere—not even, we feel certain, to a Jew, Protestant, Turk, or Pagan. But few living outside the environs of Palermo covet this cheaply purchased privilege. And to this subterranean burying-place the Palermitans are finally carried, as the Parisians are carried finally to Père la Chaise. On entering, it does not strike the stranger as being what it really is; and one wonders to see during several hours, days, or months, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, sisters, friends, or fiancées, coming to pray and weep in what might well pass for a dingy, underground, old curiosity shop, where, after they have ceased to lament, or forgotten, their defunct friends, they are laid by another set of mourners.
In Paris one possesses the key of the family vault at Père la Chaise. But in Palermo one unlocks a glazed, or unglazed, and press-like coffin to see a dead relation. Instead of crowning crosses with wreaths of flowers, in that Sicilian city, the mummies are treated to a new suit of clothes on the anniversary of their patron saint, or All Souls morning. But, as elsewhere, these mementos become rarer each year, and finally cease to show themselves.
The Capuchin Brothers are the overseers and guardians of this strange necropolis, and have as much the parched and shrivelled look of mummies, as any hung about the walls, or ranged along them in glazed cases. About one hundred and fifty live by officiating in that capacity. Their duty partly consists in saying a few short prayers. But their chief occupation is in receiving the living and the dead, labelling the latter, dusting the cases; and, above all, exhibiting them.
The different members of this confraternity seem the negation of everything living; and were it not that they speak and move, might easily pass for what they are employed to mind. Pride is not a besetting sin among them, nor cleanliness a remarkable virtue. They are less intelligent than cicerones generally; far less talkative, and not so strongly tempted by the demon covetousness. They do not sell their services nor their prayers very dearly; and, for three or four halfpence, the simple fellows escort the visitor to his vehicle without, imploring all the saints in his behalf, and make a thousand promises to show any friend he should consign to their guidance every curiosity confided to their safe keeping, and to bring him all round their conventual necropolis.
That strange development of the spirit which in Egypt caused the Pyramids to be constructed was first consecrated as a burying-place in 1484. It is situated close to the principal gate of Palermo, and in one of its most fashionable outlets. Its aspect from without is dismal in the extreme; and vast buildings that would be horribly uniform, were they not falling into ruins, rise above it. In the walls are little loop-holes, which serve as windows for the monks. Extending the whole way beneath these buildings are the subterranean caves which are excavated and constructed something like the ordinary wine-vaults of wholesale wine-merchants, or a branch of the Custom-house vaults of London. A disagreeable, earthy smell, however, is the only one that makes itself felt, and a shrivelled monk in brown frock and cowl replaces the stout and red-nosed cooper. Instead of broaching a barrel of champagne, sherry, or St. Julien’s claret, he points to a piece of defunct humanity; and dead men’s names, with the dates of their death, replace the ages and the names of the different vintages which are most prized by the epicure.
On first entering, nothing is to be seen but the dead monks, the place of honour being awarded to them, and thus some compensation made for their forced humility when among the living. But the poor fellows have not been treated to glass-fronted cases nor to changes of raiment since the day they were brought there from the vault for drying corpses. Their habits—whenever dust does not thickly coat them—are from brown faded into foxy red, and only leave the skull, the feet and hands naked. A cord or a leather strap is passed round the neck of each, and by it he is nailed, hooked, or otherwise suspended from the walls.
Three long galleries are thus occupied. But, on gaining the fourth, one altogether falls into the company of laics, who are, when not in presses, hooked up along the wall in the same manner as the churchmen. In the lofty galleries, which sometimes measure sixteen feet in height, there are often, between floor and ceiling, three rows of corpses. The bare and fleshless—or occasionally well-shod feet—of the third and second clatter against the bare and fleshless skulls of those beneath; and sometimes a cranium, that is more thrown back than the others, supports the burthen of an entire foot which has dropped from the ancle of its original possessor.
The uniform equality displayed at Clamart cannot, therefore, be complained of at Palermo, where distinctive marks of caste, and relative inferiority and superiority of social position, cannot be even banished from among the tombs.
