On Papal Conclaves/Chapter 1
I.
Much has been written about the Papacy, yet the subject of Papal Elections may be said to have been barely grazed. The reason is very simple. The matter out of which alone their history can be constructed has been hitherto inaccessible. It lies buried in Italian archives; and Italian archives, especially in all that touched on Rome, have until recently been closed against inspection with systematic jealousy. In the libraries and archives of individual families, it is indeed often possible to glean an astonishing amount of historical information, which would be little looked for in these quarters, and from such sources Professor Ranke mainly drew his materials. It is astounding how much of the highest value for the historian has been deposited in the muniment-rooms of Italian families of distinction, whose ancestors held high posts It would seem as if it had been the rule with those cunning men of former times to keep for their private use a copy of every important document connected with their official actions. But then these family collections are guarded for the most part with a jealousy hardly a whit less inexorable than that which until recently prevailed in regard to those of the State. In Rome, for instance, there are several family archives, about whose wealth in precious documents for the history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there are traditions, but whereof no student—at least no foreign student—is allowed to see more than the outside. Yet even these family archives would hardly furnish the information for a full insight into the various incidents which marked Papal elections, and caused them to turn in favour of particular candidates. Every other historical event of the family ancestors would be illustrated rather than their doings in Conclave, because while in all other situations these stood more or less in the character of agents who could not avoid correspondence with their superiors, in Conclave every ancestral Cardinal was actuated with the feeling of a principal, and operated, not through the agency of a surviving instru- ment, but as much as possible through the impalpable element of colloquy and personal persuasion. To preserve tracings of such proceedings it required that a watchful looker-on should be in the position to take notes, which the chief actors had no interest in perpetuating. This is precisely what was done by the confidential agents whom each Italian sovereign kept about a Conclave. These agents were not mere newsmongers, ministering to a morbid craving for gossip in their reports; they were the selected secret instruments set craftily in motion to effect the election of pet candidates by the ever-scheming individuals who ruled the various principalities of Italy, passing their lives in one perpetual exertion to supplant each other, to smite each other on the hip, and for whom to compass the elevation to the Papal See of a particular individual, at whose hands they had reason to expect per- sonal advantage, was always a capital object of statesmanship. In the despatches of these agents to their employers can one alone expect to find a revelation of the crafty steps and counter-steps which, springing from no higher source than intrigue of the lowest stamp, have had memorable consequences, by lodging at critical moments the supreme prerogatives of the Papacy, and therewith the religious and political destinies of a large section of the human race, in hands that had too often no title to wield this preponderating authority beyond the favour and the successful craft of a patron. History presents no more astonishing spectacle than the contrast between the mean causes which have frequently decided the fate of Papal elections and the momentous issues that have flowed from them.
It is to be hoped that students will turn their attention to the great Italian Archives, which now are freely open to inspection, and furnish us with the documentary records for this interesting and unwritten portion of history. The richness of these all but virgin mines of historical knowledge exceeds imagination; for jealousy, and vigilance, and cunning intrigue, were the three cardinal qualities that entered into the necessary constitution of Italian Princes, who spent their lives in incessant correspondence with the agents of their cunning devices. But if it is impossible to recover the exact features of particular Conclaves until the curious contents of these so long closed archives be dragged to light, there are yet other points of interest bearing on the general subject of Papal elections, which, though enveloped in no denser mystery than some amount of intricacy, have been likewise very imperfectly dealt with by all writers short of ponderous canonists. The points we allude to have reference to the constitutional forms of a Conclave—the modes in which a Pope might be created, the provisions devised to meet the exigencies of an interregnum, and the forthcoming political prerogatives that are called into existence on the occurrence of a Pope's decease. An exposition of these various matters would furnish a concrete view of the organization of the Holy See, for it is only during assembly for the creation of a Pope that the members of that See are in possession of definite powers. As an institution regulated by palpable laws, the Papacy exists only in the season of its creation; the moment it has been embodied it passes into the state of irresponsible incarnation, above all conditions, all liens, and all obligations. The privileges and provisions that authorize and limit the actions of a Cardinal are absolutely non-existing for him the instant he has been transformed into a Pope. The proclaimed Pope can at once decree, and suspend and abrogate, as he may please; but as long as there is only a Cardinal in question, his liberties are secured to him by instruments that at the same time define and tie them down. An account of the state of things constitutionally created by the advent of an interregnum—of the chartered privileges and powers which can then come in question, and of the elements that are recognised as legitimately qualified to intervene in the election of a Pope,—would accordingly furnish a bird's-eye view of the constitution of the Roman See. Here we should have a succinct abstract of the organic outgrowth—in all that concerns inward constitution—of the Roman See, as manifested upon its constitue it members in faculties, which are so man) commemorative marks of successive stages of development. An ex- position of these circumstances could not fail to possess varied interest. It is not the antiquarian alone who would here feel his curiosity attracted to illustrations of historical incidents. The practical politician, living only for immediate interests, and absorbed in the desire of devising the means of satisfying them, might find much in a survey of this nature that may serve his purpose. For amongst the contingencies which the imagination of busy minds has been fondest of looking to, as likely to prove the means for healing the rupture which has divided the Court of Rome from Italy, none has presented itself oftener than that Conclave which must follow on the death of Pius IX. The future Conclave has floated before the vision of many anxious inquirers as an inevitable but mysterious fact-looming on the political horizon with the same perplexingly impenetrable certainty with which the heavy mystery of death hangs over the boundaries of individual existence. Everyone indeed has long felt that the Conclave which must assemble on the decease of the reigning Pope will be invested with unusual importance. Speculation has been instinctively attracted towards so broadly looming and unavoidable a mystery. It is not our purpose to attempt to cast the horoscope for the issue of the coming Papal election—to venture on the task of reducing from a distance to fixity the sensitive and shifting elements of a purely personal nature that enter into the actual conformation of every Conclave; but, at a moment like the present, it may prove both instructive and interesting to have an accurate statement of all the circumstances and incidents which, according to prescription, can come into play during a Papal interregnum.