In the city a hundred or more confraternities are to be found, and almost every gentleman is a member of some one of these: some of them are open to strangers, and our kings of France belong to that of the Gonfalon. Each particular society is wont to exercise, and especially during Lent, certain functions of religious fellowship, and on this special day they walk about in companies clad in linen gowns, each company wearing its particular colour, white, red, blue, green, or black, almost all with their faces covered. The most striking sight I ever saw here or elsewhere was the incredible number of people spread abroad through the city this day, busy with their devotions, and especially those belonging to the aforesaid confraternities. For, in addition to the great crowds seen during the day round about Saint Peter’s, the whole city, as night approached, seemed to be on fire on account of the procession of these confraternities towards Saint Peter’s, each one bearing a lighted candle--almost always of white wax--in his hand. I am sure that at least twelve thousand torches must have gone by the place where I stood; for, from eight o’clock till midnight, the street was filled with the procession, marshalled and regulated in such excellent order that, though there were many different companies coming from different places, the ranks were never broken or the progress stayed. Each confraternity had a fine choir of musicians, who sang as they marched. In the midst of the ranks went a file of penitancers to the number of five hundred, who scourged themselves with cords, and left their backs all raw and bloody. This is a riddle which still baffles me, but there is no denying that they were bruised and wounded in cruel fashion, and that this self-torture and flagellation went on without ceasing. Judging by the aspect of their faces, the assurance of their gait, and the steadfastness audible in their discourse and visible in their countenances (for I heard several of them speak, and many uncovered themselves in passing through the street), it would never have suggested itself to me that they were engaged in a painful and irksome task. Amongst them were youths of twelve or thirteen years of age, and right in front of me was one, very young and fair in seeming, over whose wounds a young woman lamented sore; but the boy, turning towards us, said with a laugh, “Enough of that; what I do I do for your sins and not for my own.”[121] Not only was there absent all appearance of distress or violence, they even went about their flagellation with an appearance of pleasure, or at least of nonchalance, so marked that they might have been chattering about other matters, laughing, bawling about the street, running and leaping when there was so great a crowd that the procession fell somewhat into confusion. Along with them went certain men carrying wine, which was offered to them now and again, and some of them took a mouthful