At midnight all candles had been put out - even the tabernacle lights - and a new flame had been struck from the flint and steel in the cathedral vestibule and carried by altar boys to the other churches, in order to begin the new liturgical year with a renewed light. On the secular levels, too , it was a big day. Sausage vendors had set up little grill-carts at every corner, and sent spicy, luring smoke whirling away through every Street; children, dressed up for mass in their finest doublets and dresses, scampered about St Stephen's square afterward, begging their parents for pennies to buy Easter cakes with; and the sellers of relics and sacred gifts had people waiting in line to buy holy cards, rosaries and bones of various saints - it was later estimated that six entire beatified skeletons changed hands that day. These branches of commerce enjoyed an ecclesiastical dispensation from the rule against working on Sunday, but other small businessmen had taken advantage of the obscuring crowds to peddle their own, unsanctified goods furtively.
