The voices, perfectly trained in this ancient song, proceeded from a gallery at the commencement of the vault; the singers are not seen; the music seems to hover in the air; and every instant the fall of day renders the chapel more gloomy.  It was not that voluptuous and impassioned music which Oswald and Corinne had heard eight days before; they were holy strains which counselled mortals to renounce every earthly enjoyment.  Corinne fell on her knees before the grating and remained plunged in the most profound meditation.  Oswald himself disappeared from her sight.  She thought that in such a moment one could wish to die, if the separation of the soul from the body could take place without pain; if, on a sudden, an angel could carry away on his wings our sentiments and our thoughts—­sparks of ethereal fire, returning towards their source:  death would then be, to use the expression, only a spontaneous act of the heart, a more ardent and more acceptable prayer.

The miserere, that is to say, have mercy on us, is a psalm, composed of verses, which are sung alternately in a very different manner.  A celestial music is heard by turns, and the verse following, in recitative, is murmured in a dull and almost hoarse tone.  One would say, that it is the reply of harsh and stern characters to sensitive hearts; that it is the reality of life which withers and repels the desires of generous souls.  When the sweet choristers resume their strain, hope revives; but when the verse of recitative begins, a cold sensation seizes upon the hearer, not caused by terror, but by a repression of enthusiasm.  At length, the last piece, more noble and affecting than all the others, leaves a pure and sweet impression upon the soul:  may God vouchsafe that same impression to us before we die.

The torches are extinguished; night advances, and the figures of the prophets and the sybils appear like phantoms enveloped in twilight.  The silence is profound; a word spoken would be insupportable in the then state of the soul, when all is intimate and internal; as soon as the last sound expires, all depart slowly and without the least noise; each one seems to dread the return to the vulgar interests of the world.

Corinne followed the procession, which repaired to the temple of St Peter, then lighted only by an illuminated cross.  This sign of grief, alone and shining in the august obscurity of this immense edifice, is the most beautiful image of Christianity in the midst of the darkness of life.  A pale and distant light is cast on the statues which adorn the tombs.  The living, who are perceived in crowds beneath these vaults, seem like pigmies, compared with the images of the dead.  There is around the cross, a space which it lights up, where the Pope clad in white is seen prostrate, with all the cardinals ranged behind him.  They remain there for half an hour in the most profound silence, and it is impossible not to be moved at this spectacle.  We know not the subject of their prayers; we hear not their secret groanings; but they are old, they precede us in the journey to the tomb.  When we in our turn pass into that terrible advance guard, may God by his grace so ennoble our age, that the decline of life may be the first days of immortality!