THE CURIA
prevailing red of the cardinals' raiment thus symbolizes his readiness to endure martyrdom,
The Public Consistory then closes. In an adjoining room, the final ceremonies then take place in secret session. They consist of the closing and opening of the mouth, which symbolically obliges the elected prelates to maintain silence in public and to speak in office, the presentation of the ring, and the conferring of the "tide or the dea- conate," which must henceforth accompany the name of the bearer.
A new prince of the Church has been born. Perhaps he had grown up in a poor hovel as a barefoot boy, or perhaps he had been an humble monk in a cloistered cell. Now he is really a prince of the Church; and in so far as outward honours are concerned he takes precedence over all the world's dignitaries. His place is immediately behind the scions of royal blood, and in front of the higher nobility and the min- isters of the state. Formerly the Church demanded of its cardinals the pomp of a princely court, but a general decline in wealth brought with it a similar dwindling of such outward splendour; and since the eco- nomic upheaval that followed the World War, concessions to simplic- ity have been made in succession. The cardinals need no longer be accompanied by train bearers and a nobleman in Spanish costume. Already before the War, Roman cardinals avoided driving in public; and whenever they journeyed outside the gates they drove in thickly curtained, rented vehicles. Only a few still owned their own car- riages and horses. Generally they were accompanied only by a sec- retary and followed by a servant. Now they may go along the street on foot, garbed outwardly in a hat without insignia of their rank and in a black overcoat that covers the meagre red of their street attire*
A cardinal's residence that conforms to etiquette is a somewhat un- usual remnant of former customs. In the servants' antechamber there is a table fashioned like an altar and covered with red. On this there are placed the hats of the servants; and above it the arms of the cardi- nal are suspended under a red canopy. On either side there hangs a red pillow and a red parasol such as were formerly carried in the wake of a cardinal. Then there are a secretariat room and a "biretta" room in which the red biretta lies on a little table in front of a crucifix. Then finally there is a throne room, draped in red damask. Here the chairs are gilded and upholstered in red silk. On the principal wall
ECCLESIASTICAL
