228 MEXICO. 
In April last, Madame Santa Anna, the wife of the President, was dan- 
gerously ill, and on the 19th of the month her life was in imminent 
peril. Early in the morning it was rumored that she was to receive the 
last sacrament, and, in all probability, would not survive the service. 
About noon, notes of invitation were sent from the Foreign Office to all 
the members of the Diplomatic Corps, requesting their presence at the 
ceremony of the Viaticum ; and at seven o'clock we repaired, in uniform, 
to the Palace, where we were provided with massive wax torches, and 
ranged round the walls of the audience-chamber with the invited citizens, 
strangers, and friends of the suffering lady. 
It was already quite dark. Presently the large bell of the Cathedral 
began to toll mournfully ; and, being near a window overlooking the 
great square, I could perceive a solemn procession, with torches, issue 
from the door of the sacred edifice, preceded by a military band perform- 
ing appropriate music. Slowly it advanced to the Palace gates — the 
jewelled robes of the Archbishop and attendant priests, flashing in the 
blaze of a thousand lights, as they approached the portals. They 
mounted the steps ; entered the apartment ; and, as the prelate passed 
through, chanting a hymn, the crowd knelt to the sacred elements. 
The Cabinet Ministers and Chiefs of the army then accompanied the 
priests into the chamber of the lady, where the required functions were 
performed. Returning again, through our saloon, they issued into the 
square, and, after making a tour around it, entered the Cathedral. The 
effect of this procession — with its torches blazing in the night like so 
many diamonds — its solemn military music, and ks melancholy hymn — 
was solemn and picturesque. 
There was a similar display (though not with so much magnificence,) 
at the death of General Moran, ex-Marquis of Vivanco. His dwelling 
was directly opposite my hotel, and I saw the whole of the preparations 
for his funeral from the windows. 
Plaving been a patriotic soldier in his day, the Government undertook 
the arrangement of the last rites in his honor, and he was escorted by the 
flower of the troops. 
His body was embalmed by the process of Ganal. It was laid on an 
open bier, dressed in the full uniform of a Major-general, with boots, 
spurs, plumed hat, sword, and even the cane by his side, as is usual with 
Spanish officers. So perfectly had the operation been performed on the 
body, that it presented in these equipments, a horrid and unnatural mock- 
ery of sleep ; nor shall I ever forget the stony gaze of the glass eyes, as 
the dead body of the General issued from his gate-way. 
To the sound of solemn music the procession moved along the streets 
of Espiritu Santo and San Francisco, toward the great church near the 
Alameda. The bier was placed on a lofty catafalque before the altar, 
hung with black velvet'and lighted with tapers. A solemn service was 
performed with every aid of ecclesiastical splendor — and a multitude of 
