Dr. Ceccarelli then composed the body reverently on the bed, and covered it with a white cloth; whereupon it was carried into a neighboring chamber, looking north, towards the Belvedere wing of the palace. Detachments of the chapter of St. Peter’s kept a vigil, reciting psalms the night long. On the following morning, the 8th inst., Mgr. Macchi, Master of the Chamber, attended by Mgri. Casali del Drago and Della Volpe, Participating Secret Chamberlains of His Holiness, repaired to the apartment taken possession of the previous evening by Cardinal Pecci, Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, and gave him a formal announcement of the death of the Pope. The cardinal, having put on robes of violet, which is the mourning of the church, repaired in procession with the rest to the room in which the venerable remains lay, to effect a solemn mortuary recognition. All knelt down and prayed for a while in silence. His eminence then recited the _De profundis_, and, standing up, he reverently raised the cloth from the face of the dead. Taking a little silver hammer from the hand of a master of ceremonies, he struck the forehead of the Pontiff with it thrice, pronouncing at each stroke, in a loud voice, the name of the Pope. After a momentary silence he turned to those present and said: _Papa vere mortuus est_—The Pope is indeed dead. The cardinal then tendered a request to Mgr. Macchi, Master of the Chamber, for the Fisherman’s ring, which was still on the finger of the Pope. The monsignore removed it and gave it to the cardinal, who wrote a receipt for it. Thereupon Mgr. Pericoli, Dean of the Apostolic Prothonotaries, knelt down and read the following attestation: “This morning, February 8, at eight o’clock A.M., the Most Eminent and Reverend Cardinal Pecci, Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church, accompanied by the College of Clerics of the Chamber, by Mgr. the Vice-Chamberlain, by Mgr. the Auditor of the Reverend Chamber, by the advocate-general of the Apostolic Chamber, by the procurator-general, and by the two secretaries and chancellors of the Chamber, repaired to the private rooms of His Holiness, in one of which he found on the death bed the corpse of his same Holiness. “Having ascertained the death of the Holy Father, and recited opportune prayers in suffrage of the blessed soul, his aforesaid most reverend eminence made a request to the Most Illustrious and Reverend Mgr. Macchi, Master of the Chamber of His Holiness, for the Fisherman’s ring, which was immediately consigned by the same Mgr., the Master of the Chamber, to the most eminent chamberlain, who received it, with a view of presenting it in the first cardinalitial congregation (to be broken); for which ring his most reverend eminence gave an act of receipt to the aforesaid Mgr. the Master of the Chamber.