The room was far more plain than I had thought to find it, though pretty rich too.

The walls had sacred hangings upon them; but it was so dark with the shuttered windows that I could not make out very well what their subjects were.

A dozen damask and gilt chairs stood round the walls, and three or four tables; and, in the centre of all, where I was now arrived, stood the greatest table of all, carved of some black wood, and at the middle of one side the chair in which sat the Holy Father himself.
He had very kind but very piercing eyes: this was the first thing that I thought; his hair beneath his cap, as well as his beard, was all iron-grey; his complexion was a little sallow, and seemed all the more sallow because of his red velvet cap and white soutane; (for he wore no cloak because of the heat).

As soon as I had kissed his ring he bade me stand up--( speaking in Italian, as he did all through the audience)--and then beckoned me to a chair opposite to his, and my Lord Abbot to another on one side.

And then at once he went on to speak of the business on which we were come--as if he knew all about it, and had no time to spend on compliments.
Now our Holy Father Innocent the Eleventh was, I suppose, one of the greatest men that ever sat in Peter's Seat.