lxxxii 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 



cathedral had abated much by five o'clock in 

 the evening, at which hour I kissed the phial 

 for the last time that day. I had been in the 

 cathedral for more than eight hours without 

 once leaving it ; and I had watched with in- 

 tense interest every thing that had taken place 

 on the occasion. This was on the 19th of 

 September ; and on the 23d of the same month 

 I visited the cathedral again, betwixt the hours 

 of nine and ten in the morning, just after 

 high mass had been performed at the altar in 

 the chapel of St. Januarius. I examined the 

 blood most minutely ; it formed one solid lump, 

 and was quite immovable, as the canon turned 

 the reliquary up and down and sideways before 

 my face. There was no favour shown. The 

 poorest man in the cathedral had an equal op- 

 portunity of approaching the relic, and of in- 

 specting it, with the Queen Dowager herself, 

 who was there. The blood liquefied a few 

 minutes before ten o'clock, and I examined it 

 repeatedly in its liquid state with the same 

 attention which I had shown to it in the after- 

 noon of the 19th. 



Nothing in the whole course of my life has 

 struck me so forcibly as this occurrence. Every 



