The importance of sunny weather for public events, great everywhere, is perhaps exaggerated in Rome. Pius IX is believed to be peculiarly susceptible to sunbeams. Three of his most memorable days are, by his adorers, connected with a sunburst which shone for him especially. Professor Massi relates how, on the day of his taking "possession," the _apostolic cortège_ followed the "brilliant carriage" of the new Pope from the Via Sacra up the Coelian Hill, the Cardinals being mounted on "steeds richly adorned"--doubtless worthy to be compared with those Sicilian steeds which bore Gregory the Great, of whose stud Gregorovius soberly says, "We scarcely doubt but that Pindar would have thought the apostolic horses worthy of an ode."[193] The day was overcast--which omen had a damping effect--but just as the new Pope approached the Lateran, a glorious rainbow spanned the east, gladdening all with the certainty of a reign of peace. In like manner, Professor Massi tells of that proud April evening when the Pontiff, after a long exile, once more looked down upon the earth from his own Olympus. The clerical writers do not exactly call it heaven, but content themselves with speaking of the figure of the Pope so exalted, as "standing between earth and heaven," or as a spectacle which reminds us of the Divinity (_Frond_, p. 16). The secularizing of sacred terms, till we come down to "apostolic cortèges" and "apostolic horses," and the materializing of spiritual terms, till "the kingdom of Christ," sometimes means the temporal power, is a process which must go on until the heaven of the materialized imagination will be levelled to the height of the noblest dome, and to the beauties of the best decorator. The peerless piazza of St. Peter's was, on the day in question, filled with French uniforms. At the foot of the great staircase rose a platform covered with purple, and decked with flying banners. The heavens, all day covered with clouds, suddenly turned azure, and the setting sun poured his beams on the dome of Michael Angelo, on the cross of the Obelisk, and on the statues which adorn the Colonnade, just as Pius IX "raised his paternal hand to bless the arms which had avenged his throne." The third day on which the sun shone expressly for Pius IX has been already mentioned, that of the Immaculate Conception. It was not only, as some say, the nuns, but also priests and _littérateurs_ who took it as both indispensable and certain that St. Peter's should be bathed in the brightest gold the skies could send on the day which was to unite three glories--the anniversary of the Immaculate, the opening of the General Council, and the probable acclamation of Pius IX as infallible.