Meanwhile, after the Cathedral choir had sung a solemn Te Deum, the great procession of the church had moved out of the Portail des Libraires, chanting in mighty unison "Christe quem sedes revocant paternae," down the Rue St. Romain to the western gate of St. Maclou, where choir-boys met them bearing lighted candles and swinging incense. And the chaplain brought the prisoner out into the Place de la Haute Vieille Tour, and leading him up the right-hand steps of the Chapelle de la Fierte, presented him to the mass of people in front just before the procession arrived from the Cathedral. So he knelt bareheaded and kissed the holy shrine which two priests had borne up to its place; the Archbishop addressed him in the hearing of his fellow citizens, and before them all he made confession, receiving his absolution as he raised the shrine of St. Romain thrice by its bars upon his shoulders, while all the people cried "Noel! Noel!" Then a confrere de St. Romain put a garland of white flowers upon the prisoner's head, and holding one end of the shrine himself he gave the prisoner the other, and all men put themselves in order for the march back up the Rue de l'Epicerie to the Place de la Calende and so to the Parvis and the western gate of the Cathedral. As the first notes of the "Felix Dies Mortalibus" were chanted by the priests, a hundred and twenty poor orphans moved forward, each carrying in one hand a wooden cross all wreathed with flowers and in the other a great loaf of bread. Behind them came the shrines of all the saints whose churches guarded Rouen, each with the Confrerie over whose interests they watched; St. Blaise with his wool-merchants, St. Jean with the orange-sellers, St. Sebastien with the hatters, and many more; each marching confrere wreathed in flowers, and every shrine attended with its special banner and its priests and candles. These were followed by the archers of the Cinquantaine, and the banner of their great Dragon, who appeared again upon a lofty pole, swallowing a fish; by a band of sweet music and of singers chanting melodiously their "cantiques and motets"; by all the burgesses of Rouen walking decorously two by two; by the choir-boys of the Cathedral and two hundred of the clergy, the canons in violet, and the greater dignitaries in soutanes of red silk; by the officiating canon, and lastly by the Archbishop himself, blessing the people as he went along.