The bells of a number of mules ascending the hill, and the appearance of a strange caravan coming directly toward him, forcibly changed the current of Michelangelo Lavoratori's reflections. The mules were superb creatures, richly caparisoned and decorated with plumes. On their long purple saddle-cloths gleamed the insignia of the cardinalate, the triple cross of gold, surmounted by the little hat and tassels. They were laden with baggage and led by servants dressed in black, with gloomy, suspicious faces; then came abbés and other ecclesiastics, with black short-clothes, red stockings and large silver buckles on their shoes; some on horseback, others in litters. A very stout individual, in a black coat, with his hair in a bag, a diamond on his finger, and a sword at his side, rode gravely upon a magnificent ass. From his air of importance, somewhat more candid than the crafty expressions of the churchmen who surrounded him, he could readily be identified as his eminence's physician. He escorted his eminence himself, who was carried in a chair, or rather in a great box, by two powerful men, beside whom walked four relay bearers. The whole procession consisted of about forty persons, and the uselessness of each one of them could be measured by the rapt meditation and humility depicted on his face. Michel, deeply interested in the passage of this procession which surpassed all that Rome had to offer in that direction, that was most classic and superannuated, rose and stood near the gateway, in order to obtain a nearer view of the principal personage's face. He was the better able to gratify his curiosity, as the bearers halted in front of the enormous gilded gate, while a sort of abbé, with a repulsive countenance, dismounted and opened the gate himself with an air of authority and a peculiar smile. The cardinal was a man far advanced in years, who had once been corpulent and florid, but was now pale and emaciated, as the result of gradual and cruel decay. The skin upon his face, once tightly stretched, now relaxed, hung in innumerable folds, and imparted to the face a strong resemblance to a field furrowed by the passage of a torrent. Despite these ghastly evidences of decomposition, there was a trace of imperious beauty upon those lifeless features, which could not or would not make the faintest movement, but amid which two great black eyes still glowed, the last sanctuary of a stubborn vitality. The contrast between the stern, piercing glance and the corpse-like face impressed Michel so strongly that he could not avoid a feeling of respect, and he instinctively bared his head before that feeble remnant of a powerful will. Everything that indicated a forceful, imperious nature produced its effect upon that young man's imagination, because he was himself ambitious of power and authority, and, except for the gleam of those tyrannical eyes, it is doubtful if it would have occurred to him to remove his straw hat.