Some people were almost stifled, and two women were carried off half crushed to death.
A disagreeable surprise met Pierre on his entry into the Basilica.

The huge edifice was draped; coverings of old red damask with bands of gold swathed the columns and pilasters, seventy-five feet high; even the aisles were hung with the same old and faded silk; and the shrouding of those pompous marbles, of all the superb dazzling ornamentation of the church bespoke a very singular taste, a tawdry affectation of pomposity, extremely wretched in its effect.

However, he was yet more amazed on seeing that even the statue of St.Peter was clad, costumed like a living pope in sumptuous pontifical vestments, with a tiara on its metal head.
He had never imagined that people could garment statues either for their glory or for the pleasure of the eyes, and the result seemed to him disastrous.
The Pope was to say mass at the papal altar of the Confession, the high altar which stands under the dome.

On a platform at the entrance of the left-hand transept was the throne on which he would afterwards take his place.

Then, on either side of the nave, tribunes had been erected for the choristers of the Sixtine Chapel, the Corps Diplomatique, the Knights of Malta, the Roman nobility, and other guests of various kinds.