On Papal Conclaves/Chapter 3

by W. C. Cartwright

III.

AS soon as the Pope's state of health indicates imminent dissolution, the duty devolves on the Cardinal Secretary of State to communicate with the Dean of the Sacred College, that he may summon his brother Cardinals to hasten to the dying Pope's residence, and that, with the Cardinal Vicar, whose functions are those of Prefect of the ecclesiastical police in the city of name, he may issue orders for offering up public prayers in the churches. Upon the Cardinal Penitentiary, who is the official depositary of the specifically spiritual powers vested in the Pope, falls the obligation of attending him in the last moments, along with his Confessor, though the special duty of administering extreme unction devolves on the Monsignor Sagrista, the Sacristan of the Pope's Chapel. "Then decease has occurred, the fact is immediately notified to the Cardinal Camerlengo by the Secretary of State, who then divests himself of his office, which remains in abeyance until the Cardinals have actually entered the Conclave, where they nominate a secretary, who is, however, not one of themselves. The Cardinal Camerlengo is in precedence one of the highest functionaries in the Roman Court, and figures prominently on all State occasions during the interregnum. He is considered to represent the dignitary who in the earlier times was entitled Vestiarius, and had in charge the stewardship of the Church's properties. Down to very recent times the Cardinal Camerlengo continued to be a very powerful, probably the most powerful personage next to the Pope, in the States of the Church; for within his attributes fell the administration of whatever stood connected, however remotely, with the interests of the Papal Exchequer; while he was besides possessed of immediate jurisdiction over all secular cases in the city and district of Rome. But that process of functional centralization, which has gradually reduced the official organization of Rome to a Pope and a Secretary of State, has deprived the Camerlengo of the realities of greatness, and left him a mere lay figure of his former self. Instead of being, as once he was, a dictator for the time of the interregnum, the real King of Rome during the interval between the death of one and the creation of another Pope, whose authority was actively invoked to secure the peace of the city at that season, and did effectively intervene in the course of general government at all periods, the Camerlengo is now confined to the exercise of mere ceremonial, and the hollow display of a dumb-show of authority. From the moment, however, that the Pope has breathed his last, he figures still as the first man in the State, and during the days before the Conclave can be constituted, as its direct representative, inaugurating the exercise of his provisional powers by a truly quaint piece of ceremony, the symbolism whereof is obscure. At the head of the Chierici di Camera, the Camerlengo hastens to hold an inquest on the reported demise of the Pope. Proceeding to the death-chamber, the Cardinal strikes the door with a gilt mallet, calling on the Pope by name. On receiving no reply, he enters the room, when he taps the corpse on the forehead with another mallet of silver, and falling on his knees before the motionless body, proclaims the Pope to be in truth no more. It is after this that he forwards to the Senator the notification for the ringing of the great bell in the Capitol, which is to announce to the Romans that their Sovereign has died. This bell, which is tolled only on this occasion and on the opening of the Carnival, has a curious history. It was originally the communal bell of Viterbo. Between this city and Rome a fierce enmity prevailed in the twelfth century, which after hot conflicts ended by the overthrow of the Viterbese in the year 1200. By the terms of capitulation, the Romans carried off, as trophies and signs of supremacy, besides the recovered bronze gate of St. Peter's, which the Viterbese had captured in 1167, a chain and city gate key, which were suspended at the arch of Gallienus, and the communal bell, which from that time has been hung in the Capitol. It was surnamed La Paterina, a denomination which has been derived, with apparent foundation, from the Paterini, Viterbo having been notorious for harbouring a quantity of these sectarians.

From this moment the whole machinery of Government is suspended, and remains so until the creation of a Pope calls it again into activity. Formerly the Pope's demise was practically tantamount to a fact cancelling the titles of existing authorities—as if an intrusive Government had come to an end by the demise of its immediate representative, and usurped power had returned thereon to the people. All the jails in Rome used to be immediately thrown open, not by an irruption of the populace, but by intervention of the old civic magistracy, which, on the proclamation of an Interregnum, stepped forward at once on the public stage and claimed to represent the Roman people. This tradition of civic authority in Rome has not died out. On notification being received by the Senator of the Pope's death, he still summons the senatorial councillors and despatches officers of his own to open the two chief jails in the city, and let out, not indeed all the prisoners, but such as come within the vague category of light offenders.^[1] For all purposes of administration Rome is as it were placed under sequestration. Even the law courts suspend their sittings, and in every branch of the Executive there is only that amount of activity which is indispensably requisite to prevent torpor from sinking into absolute dissolution. This state of things proceeds from the strict limitations imposed by Papal decrees upon the provisional authorities called into existence during the interregnum—limitations that were devised with the view of removing temptations to spin out the tenure of provisional office. Systematically the jealousy of Popes has carefully circumscribed the powers to be exercised by the Sacred College during a vacancy of the Papal Chair until they have become stripped of all serious initiatory faculty, and extend only over the merest matters of indispensable routine.^[2] Of this routine the pomp and glitter revolve, as we have said, chiefly on the Cardinal Camer- lengo, who forthwith receives from the Maestro di Camera the late Pope's piscatorial ring,^[3] which is broken at the first general meeting of Cardinals, held on the day immediately following the Pope's decease. His next duty, after consigning the corpse to the care of the Penitentiaries of the Vatican Basilica, is to take an inventory of all object. in the Apostolical Palace,—a very natural proceeding, and deserving notice only because it owes its origin to the once customary riots in Rome during an interregnum, when it was an established thing for the mob to rifle the Pope's palace. To guard against the illicit removal of Pontifical property, the Camerlengo stays therefore in the palace until all has been properly registered, when, carrying away the key of the Pope's apartments, he returns in state to his private residence, his carriage being escorted by the Pope's particular body-guard of Swiss halberdiers, which continues in attendance on him until the election of a new Pope. Also all edicts issued during the interregnum run in his name, and the coin struck by the mint has on it the Camerlengos private arms. And here at this early stage we already meet the checking contrivances invented against the possibility of some ambitious Cardinal usurping what is due only to the Pope. As soon as the Camerlengo has reached his dwelling he sees three Cardinals arrive-the senior members of the three classes in the Sacred College, bishops, priests, and deacons-who, during the nine days that are prescribed to elapse before a Conclave can be constituted, remain associated with him in a special congregation representing the Executive of the State.^[4] The prerogatives of this Board are, however, again carefully limited to carrying out the resolutions taken by the general assembly of Cardinals, which meets each day for the transaction of business that is itself laid down and defined with extraordinary minuteness. It comprises the arrangements for the Pope's funeral, the preparatory disposition for getting the Conclave ready, and the nomination of various officers specially charged with duties either in the Conclave or for securing the peace of the town. Most of the great functionaries in the Court of Rome hold their offices only for the Pope's lifetime. His decease produces therefore an instantaneous absence of authority which the Cardinals have to make good, and in former times, when tumults were the order of an election season, the appointment of the military officer, who, with the title of Lieutenant of the Holy Church, held the Castle of St. Angelo, and, together with the Bargello, the chief of the city police, the Sbirri, had the duty of preserving order in the town, and of protecting particularly the Trasteverine quarter, where lies the Vatican, in which Conclaves then met, was a matter of very great importance. On all these points the Board, at the head of which figures the Camerlengo, has no power of initiative, while the general assembly is itself bound by prescriptions, the painful minuteness of which is conclusively illustrating of the spirit of formalism pervading the whole system. For each of the nine preliminary days there is an enjoined assembly of Cardinals that is limited to go through the form of some minutely prescribed bit of ceremonial mechanism, not to be departed from, not to be exceeded, not to be innovated upon. Every attribute of these assemblies is rigidly fixed and circumscribed. Here we have the unmistakable impress of generations of jealous Popes, who have been assiduously at work in hammering out a system into such elaborately thin points as cannot he twisted into shapes that might prove dangerous to the perfect absoluteness which Popes will allow to reside only in themselves. 'During the vacation of the See,' says Pius IV., in a Bull that is inserted in the latest collection of regulations in force during an interregnum,^[5] 'in those things which appertained to the Pope when alive, the College of Cardinals can have no power or jurisdiction whatever, whether of grace or justice, or of giving execution to such resolutions of the deceased Pope; but it is bound to reserve them to the future Pope.' There is an explicit prohibition against this body assuming to dispose of any of the properties of the Church, or any of the moneys belonging to the Apostolical Chamber or to the Datary's office, even for the discharge of debts contracted before the late Pope's death; its power over the coffers of the exchequer extending merely to the maintenance of the functionaries constituting the Papal establishment, and the payment of what may be required for the 'defence of the lands and places of the Church.' It is only on the occurrence of what may be deemed 'a grave peril' by at least two-thirds of the Cardinals assembled, that the Sacred College can be dispensed from a literal observance of these limitations upon its prerogatives, and proceed to adopt such resolutions and measures as may seem to it demanded by circumstances.^[6] The faculty contained in this provision is of moment, and not to be overlooked. The more one studies the regulations of the Court of Rome, the more will one he impressed by the fact, how, athwart all the dense accumulation of punctilious formalism which has been the aggregate deposit of a current setting in the same direction for centuries, there is yet preserved a cunning element of subtle elasticity that has been shrewdly cherished in secret against the event of the force of altered circumstances, making it some way desirable to seek protection in what has been so jealously suppressed and scouted in ordinary times— liberty of individual initiative.

Now-a-days Rome wears during an interregnum no great outer look of change—all going on pretty much in the same steady order as before. But formerly the case was very different. 'Let not him say that he has been in Rome who has not happened to be there during the vacation of the See,' are the words of a contemporary who wrote a narrative of the Conclave which, in 1621, resulted in the election of Gregory XV.^[7] Down to comparatively a quite recent date entry upon an interregnum was synonymous with entry upon a period of riot and brawl, which made the streets unsafe for quiet citizens. Every kind of misdemeanour revelled at this season in Rome, which became for the time a perfect bear-garden, in which criminals let out of jail enjoyed. themselves mightily at the expense of peace-loving folks. The lawlessness which then reigned in Rome was a recognised order of things, consecrated by custom, and looked upon as a prescriptive right during the period of Conclave, just as the right of mummery during the Carnival season. The origin of this strange state of things must be sought in the general want of discipline that distinguished the armed force kept by States in the middle ages, and especially in that kept by the Pope. The trained bands were so many bodies of mutinous and lawless brawlers, who seized every opportunity for indulging their natural disposition to insubordination, outrage, and crime. Their pay as a rule was terribly in arrear, and therefore they hardly ever failed to begin operations on the decease of a Pope by a demand to have their claims settled or they would do no duty. These men, swept together from all corners, true mercenaries and adventurers of the purest water, were the dread of all classes-of the Cardinals, who could not dipense with their services, and had to buy their good humour; —of the townspeople, who were at the mercy of their recklessness. The natural consequence was that during an interregnum Rome wore the look of a city armed for civil war. Every noble in self-defence assumed the privilege of arming his retainers and of drawing chains across the street in the neighbourhood of his palace, which was garrisoned by his followers, and converted into an asylum. He usurped the right of keeping his own quarter of the city free from all police but his own. Some of the great families succeeded in obtaining a recognition of this claim, like the Mattei, who had the right to hold the bridges of San Sisto and Quattro Capi, together with the intervening region of the Ghetto, with retainers wearing the badges of their house.^[8] But in most cases the authority exercised by the various magnates was only the out-flow of an all-pervading spirit of license and tumult, that wrested as much power as it could, without any warrant for the peculiar pretensions advanced.^[9] The nominal police of Rome was vested in two officers, who, to add to the confusion, were traditionally jealous of each other's authority—the Bargello, who was the ordinary head of the regular city police, the Sbirri; and the Lieutenant of Holy Church, who, as commander-in-chief of the soldiery, and special governor of the Leonine city, held office only for the period of interregnum. The particular duty intrusted to his charge was to secure the Cardinals from molestation, and to this end it became customary to erect barricades at the limits of the Leonine city, whereby the free circulation through it was prevented, except for those armed with a special permit.

One of the most riotous elections on record is that when, in 1623, Urban VIII. —Barherini—was raised to the chair of St. Peter. The disturbances which then happened are stated by the contemporary diarist Gigli to have been such 'as no one could remember haying eyer witnessed.' 'Not a day passed,' he writes, "without many brawls, murders, and waylayings. Men and women were often found killed in various places, many being without heads, while not a few were picked up in this plight, who had been thrown into the Tiber. ,Many were the houses broken into at night and sadly rifled. Doors were thrown down, women violated,—some were murdered, and others ravished; so also many young girls were dishonoured and carried off. As for the Sbirri, who tried to make arrests, some were killed outright, and others grievously maimed and wounded. The chief of the Trastevere region was stabbed as he went at night the rounds of his beat, and other chiefs of regions were many times in danger of their lives. lMany of these outrages and acts of insolence were done by the soldiers who were in Rome as guards of the various lords and princes; as happened especially with those whom the Cardinal of Savoy had brought for his guard, at whose hands were killed several Sbirri who had taken into custody a comrade of theirs. In short, from day to day did the evil grow so much, that had the making a new Pope been deferred as long as it once seemed likely, through the dissensions of the Cardinals, there was ground to apprehend many other strange and most grievous inconyeniences.' Against such an all-pervading spirit of law- lessness it was a very inadequate provision for making the streets safe at night that every householder was bound to hang out a lamp before his dwelling during the period of interregnum. Even now, Rome is, of all capitals in Europe, the least pleasant to walk about in the dark; but scandalously unsafe as its streets are, their cndition is yet a very pale copy of the state they were habitually reduced to, as it were by privilege,^[10] during the pandemonium season of former Conclaves.

Pius IV., a Pope of a certain reforming vigour, issued in 1562 a long Bull, repeating older regulations for a Conclave that seemed to require being called to mind, and forbidding a variety of abuses which had cropped up. The twenty-first clause runs thus:-' Also we forbid wagers, quas excommissas vocant, being made on a pending Papal election; and decree that if against these presents any should yet be made, they shall be held and deemed altogether null and void in court, and out of the same; and that those thus contravening, and their brokers, be punished as it may please the Governor and the future Pope.' It will create surprise to find such an injunction amongst the matters considered worthy of particular attention by a Pope when making regulations for the election of his successors. An explanation for the importance here attached to what would seem so irrelevant is to be found in the incidents that came habitually to attend these bets. At one time they grew to be in Rome what the odds given at Tattersall's are with us—a matter involving considerable interests,—occupying whole classes, and producing a standing excitement. The gambling propensities prevalent amongst Italians darted upon the conflicting elements offered by a Conclave to reduce them into a series of chances on which to pitch stakes. The shopkeepers and merchants of Rome entered into the game with a passion which resembled the habits of speculation in stock which have made the Funds a subject of palpitating interest, and the Bourse a capital institution for a great section of the society of our day, more particularly on the Continent. As soon as ever a Pope had breathed his last, the Banchi Vecchii, and Nuovi— streets still bearing these names, and running from the small square in front of the bridge of St. Angelo—became an improvised Ex- change, "here the rival chances of candidates were publicly quoted and eagerly discounted, amidst commotion that commonly was at- tended with riot. This locality was the Fleet Street of Rome. Here resided the chief merchants, especially the goldsmiths, from whom the quarter derived its name; for in Rome, as elsewhere, the goldsmiths did business as money-brokers and bankers, figuring as the natural agents and go-betweens in all money operations.^[11] While, in May 1335, the Cardinals were shut up for the second time in that year, after the death of Marcelius II., the Pope of reforming promise, whose abrupt death caused so many hopes to be dashed, it is on record how the excited temper of the city as to the issue of the pending election broke into an extraordinary manifestation of this betting propensity. The false rumour happened suddenly to run through Rome that Cardinal Farnese was assured of his majority, and that his elevation was going to be proclaimed. Thereupon the people rushed together in such numbers that, from Campo di Fiori, where is the Farnese Palace, to the Vatican, 'it 'Was possible to walk but in a crush, and at risk of being trampled upon by the throng of men and horses;' and the Conclave itself had to be hurriedly protected from invasion and sack by a reinforced guard. This excitement of course infected the speculators in the Banchi, so that the Farnese stock ran up that night to seventy gold crowns, with so eager a demand for it, from the firm conviction that the Cardinal's proclamation was beyond doubt, that the contemporary reports declare it due only to the forced cessation from business by the advent of night, that its value did not go to a yet higher figure. The following morning, when the election was found to be still in suspense, the inevitable reaction brought down the Farnese quotation to 10 and 12^[12] The Bull of Pius IV. was not sufficient to arrest the Letting propensities of the inhabitants of the Banchi; and in spite of Papal fulminations, the chances of an election were still made the subject of wagers that led to frequent breaches of the peace. Amongst the many valuable papers preserved in the Gaetani archives, there is one which is singularly illustrative of what used to occur in this quarter. It is the report by the Duke of Sermoneta, who, in the interregnum of 1590, was the Lieutenant of Holy Church, of the circumstances that led to a murderous scuffle between his own soldiers in guard in the Banchi and a patrol of the city Shirri. By right the Banchi lay within the bounds of the Bargello's authority, but at the request of the shopkeepers the Lieutenant had posted a watch of soldiers in this street. These had refused, it was said by mistake, to let pass a round of Sbirri, whereupon the Bargello had hurried in person to the spot to assert his authority, hut the soldiers laughed to scorn his pretensions, and a scuffle ensued, with a discharge of fire-arms, which killed several individuals. The Bargdlo beat a retreat into the palace of the Governor of Rome, while the Duke, who happened to be standing at the Castle gate when the tumult occurred, hastened across the bridge to appease it, and draw off into the Borgo his riotous soldiers. In his report he then recommends measures to prevent the recurrence of such scenes, and states the cause that lay at their bottom: 'I have sent,' he writes, 'another company to be in guard at the Banchi; but it may be deemed advisable, on account of what has happened, to remove altogether this post from there, as the brokers and dealers wish and ask for the same only because it affords them protection for laying their wagers, and they are the parties who sow dissensions between soldiers and Sbirri. . . . If this guard were taken away from the Banchi, the Bargello would then be able to pass there freely, and thus a stop would be put to these wagers, from which proceed all the riots.' Now-a-days, this move of making a Papal election subserve the general love for play has been superseded by the system of the lottery; and whereas formerly heads were often broken in the angry excitement caused by the daily rise and fall in the rival chances of favourite Cardinals, the population of Rome at present during an interregnum satisfies its gambling passions by peacefully playing on combinations of numbers formed out of the ages of Cardinals, or any other circumstances connected with their individualities which human ingenuity may be able to translate into a cabalistic expression.^[13] A Bull of Clement XII., impregnated with the spirit of economy, abolished, together with a number of other offices, the Governorship of the Leonine city. The reforming hand of the age, quickened by the prickings of inexorable penury, has been successfully engaged in paring down the old-fashioned lavishness of even arch-conservative Rome. At present the peace of the Popeless city is left entirely to the care of Monsignor Governatore, who with drilled gendarmes in modern plight has superseded the once rival powers and fantastic archers of the Church's Lieutenant and the civic Bargello,—ruling Rome during an interregnum by the same grim intervention of prowling police that is ordinarily busy in its streets when an actual Pope resides in the Vatican. One vestige alone still figures of the peculiar powers which started into existence at the beck of necessities now happily vanished. It is to be found in the pomp and parade that attend the Marshal of the Conclave,—an officer who is a member of the great Roman aristocracy, and whose professed duty is to be the jailer of the assembled Cardinals, having it on his conscience to keep them tightly shut off from contact with the outer world. In reality, this dignity is now become an appanage of the Chigi family, though, in strictness, not hereditary, the office being conferred afresh for life on each new head of the house. The origin of the creation dates from the troubled period of Gregory X.'s elevation. Innocent VI. (1352-62) bestowed the office on a member of the great Savelli family, which from father to son retained it until in 1712 this house became extinct, having held the dignity always by the same tenure by which it now descends in the Chigis, on whom it was conferred at this period. Once the authority attached to this office was very considerable, and not confined only to the season of interregnum, for the Marshal possessed jurisdiction over all lay members of the Pontifical Court, who were tried before his special tribunal, the Corte Sayclla, and lodged in his special prison. That privilege came to an end under Innocent X., in whose edict of suppression the grave abuses prevalent in that Court, and the scandalous state of the prisons, are expressly alluded to as rendering reform indispensable. In spite of these curtailments of his powers, the Marshal retains all the outward display of high rank, and figures during a Conclave as second in precedence only to the Camerlengo. The essence of his importance has indeed much waned; about the only real exercise of authority which he may yet be called upon to put in practice being the legitimate distribution of pass-medals, which the Marshal is entitled to get coined in silver and in gold. nevertheless, in the ceremonial pageant of Rome, this dignitary makes a prominent show, although he also has not escaped the pnming action of that spirit of reduction which has been in the ascendant of late. The Diario di Roma of the day gives a glowing description of the sumptuous magnificence displayed by the first Marshal of the Chigi family on his first appearance in this capacity after the death of Clement XI. in 1721:-

'Before his palace in Piazza Colonna there was drawn up his company of hundred men enlisted and clothed in blue at the Prince's own court, together with their officers. Then there went to attend his Excellency a company of fish-vendors, clothed in gala, in white and blue calico, and white feathers in their hats, with trimmings, after which came a troop of rosary-makers, and then another from the quarter of La Regola, and these going in a body before the great standards with his Excellency's arms, marched along the whole Strada Papale to St. Peter's, and mounted guard at the Prince's own apartment, which is at the great staircase of the Vatican Basilica.'

During a Conclave, the Marshal still takes up his quarters in the building where it meets, and just outside the barriers that shut in the Cardinals, to watch over whose strict confinement, and to inspect the un-impeachable nature of the articles passed through the turning-wheels for the admission of really indispensable objects, constitute the only duties he still has any pretensions to perform. The thrifty spirit of Clement XIII. included the gay bands of retainers amongst the items suppressed by his reform- ing Bull, so that now the Prince-Marshal has a less ostentatious, but also less costly guard, furnished by a contingent of Papal regulars. 'On coming home very tired and dying of cold,' is Stendhal's entry on the 14th February 1829, in his Promenades dans Rome, 'we observed that Don Agostino Chigi, Marshal of the Conclave, had at his door a guard of honour.'

It would be more than tedious to recount the prescriptive ceremonial for each of the nine days of preparation before entering Conclave. The first three are more particularly devoted to the obsequies of the Pope, which take place always at St. Peter's—the chapel of the Pontifical residence, and are marked by many striking rites, full of obscure symbolism, and quaint mementos of obsolete customs. Stendhal, who was in Rome at the death of Leo XII., and curiously followed the ceremonies of the interregnum, gives in his Promenades an excellent account of what is still practised. 'To-day the obsequies of the Pope began at St. Peter's,' he writes, 'and we were there from eleven in the forenoon. The Pope's catafalc has been raised in the Chapel of the Choir, sur- rounded by the noble Guards in their hand- some scarlet uniforms. The body of the Pope is not yet there. Before the catafalc a high mass was read. It was Cardinal Pacca who officiated as sub-dean of the Sacred College. . . . After mass, the Cardinals withdrew to govern the state; their sitting took place in the chapter-hall of St. Peter's. . . . . While the Cardinals were busy governing, the clergy of St. Peter's went to fetch the body of Leo XII. in the chapel where it was exposed; the Miserere being chanted. The corpse lun-ing been borne into the Chapel of the Choir, the Cardinals returned. The corpse was splendidly robed in white; with great state it was placed, in strict conformity to a very intricate ceremonial, within a shroud of purple silk, ornamented with embroidery and gold fringe. In the coffin were laid three bags filled with medals, and a parchment scroll, wherein was the history of the Pope's life. The curtains of the great gate of the chapel were drawn, but some favoured foreigners were clandestinely smuggled into the singers' tribune.' Stendhal adds the remark, that' a well-founded spirit of suspicion pervades everything that happens on a Pope's demise; for the poor deceased has no relatives around him, and those charged with providing a successor might possibly bury a Pope alive.'

The deathbeds of many Popes have indeed witnessed shocking scenes of destitution and abandonment, coupled with outrageously indecent treatment of the corpse. What can be more lurid in its effect than the sacrilegious brawl, by torchlight, over the dead body of Alexander VI., between drunken soldiers and priests, within the hallowed area of St. Peter's, just before the very altar, as it is drily described by the ceremoniary Burckhardt?—'By four beggars was the corpse borne into St. Peter's, the clergy, according to custom, preceding, and the canons walking by the side of the bier, which being set in the midst of the church, they stood awaiting the Non Intres in Judicium to be said, but the book could not be found, wherefore the clergy began singing the response Libera Domine. While this chanting was going on in church, some soldiers of the palace-guard laid hold of and snatched the torches from the clerks, whereupon the other clergy defended themselves with the torches in their hands, and the soldiers made use of their weapons, so that the clergy, becoming frightened, rushed in a body into the sacristy, leaving off their chant, and the Pope's corpse remaining by itself. I and some others took up the bier and carried it before the high altar.' Happily there is no record of any other scandal of equal magnitude, but yet the deathbeds of many Popes have been attended by circumstances of painful neglect, in glaring contrast with the eminent rank in life of the individual who was going to his grave. The last Pope, Gregory XVI., died in a manner unattended. He had been ailing with an attack of erysipelas in the foot for some days, which had confined him to bed; but the illness had not attracted notice until his absence from the public service on Whit-sunday, which fell on the 31st May (1846). It was a peculiarity of Gregory XVI. not to like the subject of death to be mentioned in his hearing, so that this known feeling on his part, combined with the absence from Rome of his chief physician—the German Dr. Alertz—probably contributed to make the courtiers and the less experienced medical men in charge treat the malady more lightly than should have been the case. On the morning of Whitsunday, the Pope, however, felt his strength failing; he caused a mass to be read to him before daylight, and took the sacrament; but even then the doctors, in reply to his questions, declared that he would he out of bed in a week, and pronounced it unnecessary to issue a bulletin. But in the night the Pope's condition grew much worse, so that when, in the morning at seven o'clock, the Cardinal Secretary of State, Lambruschini, came, he found the Pope speechless, and already aneled in a hurry by another ecclesiastic than the one on whom, in the prescribed order of ceremonial, this duty devolved. The Pope was actually breathing his last; and in the absence of the Cardinal Penitentiary, who could not be summoned in time, the Secretary of State hastily read over him the appointed prayers for the dying. At the time, these facts gave rise to much comment, both in ecclesiastical and general circles, and suspicions were expressed for which there is no reason to believe that foundation existed. The only charge to be brought is that of negligence and want of perspicacity against those who were in attendance on the Pope.

By the ninth day everything requisite for proceeding to business must have been terminated; the Conclave must be ready to receive its inmates, and these must have been selected. For a Conclave comprises a whole population locked up in attendance upon the possible wants of the immured Eminences. It would take pages to give a list of all the different categories of functionaries and servants who have to share the privileges of this imprisonment,—from the Maggiordomo to the Father Confessor, and from the Head-Physician down to the Barbers and Carpenters and Sweepers. All these categories are carefully indicated in grave Papal rescripts, as also the exact number in each which it is allowable for a Conclave to contain; the nomination always resting with the general congregation of Cardinals, except in the case if the Conclavists who are private secretaries to the Cardinals, and therefore selected by their patrons within specified limitations. These Conclavists have often played a most important part in Papal elections, many of which have owed their issue to the adroit practices of these subaltern agents. The position of a Conclavist is confidential—one of intimacy.^[14] Each Cardinal may be accompanied by two, who must be neither engaged in trade, nor stewards to princes, nor lords of a temporal jurisdiction, nor brothers or nephews of their patron Cardinal, in whose household they must have been domiciled for a twelvemonth before. The feeling of jealous precaution which is plainly dominant in all these regulations, has caused their conditions to be carefully observed. In 1758 Cardinal Malvezzi attempted to smuggle in a favourite, Canon Bolognini, and underwent the mortification of seeing him denied admission by the Sacred College, on the ground of his not having been a bonâ fide member of the Cardinal's household for the prescribed period, and its being therefore apprehended that he had been selected for the purpose of serving as the instrument to promote particular influences. On this occasion another curious exclusion was witnessed. The appointment of Physician-in-Chief was about being conferred on a Dr. Guattani, who is specially mentioned to have been a practitioner of renown, when Cardinal York expressed his father's hope that the Sacred College, in deference to his royal wish, would not make this nomination —a wish which was accordingly acceded to.^[15]

The Conclavists constituted and still constitute a corporation conscious of power, and invested with recognised privileges. They have in fact acquired the substantial position which useful subalterns always do acquire. From an early period they appear to have been in the receipt of considerable gratifications, 'which they stoutly exacted, and finally reduced to a legalized tariff. Amongst themselves they fixed a formal code of regulations in reference to perquisites, to which every Conclavist was bound to adhere, although such stipulations were distinctly contrary to Papal bulls. It was an established abuse that the cell of the newly-elected Pope should be sacked by the Conclavists, each man carrying off what booty he was lucky enough to secure. This monstrous perquisite was once subjected to reform by the Conclavists meeting on the 13th March 1513 in the Sistine Chapel, and discussing the point as if it were the most canonical right. The determination arrived at is preserved in a very business- like procès-verbal, given in full by Moroni, just as if it had been a legal document, instead of the expression of triumphant license. It was ruled that in lieu of the Pope's cell being offered up to common plunder, it should be the perquisite of his Conclavist on payment by the latter to his colleagues of 1500 ducats in gold, for which these became bound bodily to each other. But a custom of old date, however illegitimate, is not abolished at a blow; and the Conclavists continued their tumultuous and extortionate proceedings without alteration, in after Conclaves. Down to the time of Alexander VII. (1655) the sacking of the newly-elected Pope's cell seems to have been the rule. It appears that its contents are now the perquisites of his Cameriere, an individual who stands in the position of familiar menial. The Conclavists are at present in the enjoyment of perquisites seemed by Papal rescripts,-conclusive evidence of the peculiar influence possessed by this body of men. Fifteen thousand scudi (about £3000) are allotted as a fee after election, to be divided amongst the Conclavists, who besides are allowed the privilege of becoming full citizens in any town within the Pope's dominions, are admitted to the rank of nobility, and, if members of a religious order (every Cardinal must have one ecclesiastical Conclavist), are empowered to bequeath, by will, away from their brotherhood. It is intelligible how active secretaries of this stamp, thoroughly conversant with the inner minds of the Sacred College, often should have had great influence in deciding Papal elections.

On one occasion the slyness of the Conclavist Torres all but deprived Pius IV. of his election. Torres was in attendance on Cardinal Cueva. Clandestinely he canvassed one night the Cardinals, speaking to each man singly as if he did so only to himself. His language was that it would be gratifying as well as proper that Cueva, who, he said, could never be elected, should have the honour of the testimony of respect involved in the vote of the particular Cardinal whom he was addressing. The vote would be a barren, but yet a pleasing distinction, he averred. By such representations, cunningly addressed singly to each Cardinal, Torres had actually got the promise of thirty-two votes out of the thirty-four in Conclave, and was inwardly chuckling over the astonishment which would follow on the opening of the ballot-box, when the trick is said to have been defeated by Cardinal Capo di Ferro accidentally asking his neighbour for whom he was about to vote, and being told for Cueva, to pay him a compliment at Torres' suggestion. Still seventeen votes had already been given in his favour before the exposure of the trick.

An interesting narrative is preserved^[16] of the election of MarcelIus II. by a Conclavist of more than ordinary audacity, inasmuch as he ventured first, on peeping upon the very mysteries of the sacred vote constituting a Pope, at which Cardinals alone should he present, and then on divulging in a letter the scene he had looked upon. On this occasion the Cardinals appear to have had special grounds for being on their guard against the possible presence of unqualified Conclavists, for the day after the closing of the gates and the formal expulsion of strangers, they proceeded to an exceptional scrutiny of all who had remained within. The whole population of the Conclave was got together in the Pauline Chapel, at the door of which the three Cardinals, Capi d'Ordini, with the Cardinal Camerlengo, took their seats and scrutinized each individual as he passed out singly before them, the result of the inspection being the ejection of fifteen interlopers. Those who remained did not, however, show any greater disposition for this purgation to humour the assembled Cardinals, for we are told that two days later the Conclavists chose eight of their number as 'defenders to secure the observance of their privileges, that are many,' though the' nature of these privileges is not stated. After an unusual and unexplained delay, the Cardinals., who had formally entered Conclave as long ago as the 5th, proceeded to a first ballot on the 9th April, when the suffrages were found divided between Caraffa (Paul IV.), Ferrara, and Cervini, Cardinal by the title of Sta. Croce, and in the end the victorious candidate. The second of these Cardinals was particularly obnoxious to the Imperialists; but his following was considerable, his influence formidable, and his elevation to the Papal chair, out and out the result most deprecated from an Imperialist point of view, seemed not merely possible, but was considered likely to be assured if the election were protracted another four-and-twenty hours. To defeat Ferrara's chance of success became, accordingly, the object above every other of the efforts of those Cardinals who had at heart the Emperor's interest. To this end they quickly concerted to throw their influence without loss of time on the side of Cervini as the most generally popular candidate, even though there were grounds why he could not be specially agreeable to the Emperor, whom he had displeased during his presence as Legate at the Council of Trent. But the danger of Ferrara's elevation was so imminent that a sacrifice had to be made without loss of time. Under these circumstances it was resolved to carry the election by surprise before Ferrara and the French party had the opportunity to counteract the move next morning. Accordingly Cardinals Madruzzi and Caraffa stole privately to Cervini's cell to prepare him for what was coming, while the Cardinals were assembled within the Pauline Chapel in debate, which became eager and hot. Suddenly up jumped Cardinal Crispo, a confederate, and exclaimed, 'Up and let us be going; I for one will not rebel against the Holy Ghost,' and with these words he led the way, followed by most Cardinals, to the cell of Cervini, who was carried forcibly into the chapel amidst the vociferous acclamations not merely of his supporters, but even of most of his opponents, when they saw the day lost for them. Still, success had been snatched so far only by a hold stroke; and to confirm the adverse party in disorganization, the Conclavists were employed to make the fact of Cervini's election known at once in the city, with the view of eliciting popular demonstrations that might effectually suppress any awakening tendency to opposition. For what had occurred, though of unmistakable force, was yet quite informal, and before the acclaimed Cervini could legitimately call himself Pope, it was still necessary to go through certain elaborate and punctiliously enjoined formalities. In the heat of the moment the proposal was indeed heard to hoist Cervini without more ado into the Papal chair, and to proceed forthwith to the act of adoration, but Medici, though a warm supporter, interfered, and drew attention to the necessity for observing carefully in this case every enjoined prescription, as a safeguard against later challenge of the election. At this admonition the Cardinals calmed their excitement, and relapsing into a proper air of gravity, proceeded to their seats, while the Conclavists were ordered out of the chapel. 'I alone went behind the altar,' writes the anonymous Conclavist, 'when the others were being driven out, and after the door had been closed came back again and put myself behind the Pope's chair, without anything being said to me, though I had been perceived by Cardinals; and so all of them being seated, the Cardinal of Kaples (Caraffa), as Dean, stood up and said, "Ego Joannes Petrus Cardinalis Episcopus Hostiensis Neapolitanus Decanus digo in Summum Pontificem Reyerelldis- simum Dominum meum Cardinalem Sanctæ Crucis," and in the same manner did the others give their votes, a secretary writing down each like a notary; when, just as they had finished, the Ave Maria sounded, which having been repeated by all as if in thanks to God for the consummation of the election, the Pope rose and made a little Latin speech thanking the College for its choice, and expressing his resolve, though conscious of unworthiness and insufficiency for such a charge, to do his duty, with an engagement to attend to no private interest, but only to the good of all, and several other words very much to the point, and of great gravity. Hereupon the Cardinal Dean of Naples got up and said that, in observance of the ancient rules, a ballot should be taken the following morning, with the voting-papers open, in order that his Holiness might see the good affection of all towards him, and this without prejudice of the present election, which was approved of by all, who unanimously would have the Pope speak the words, "Acceptamus sine præjudicio præsentis electionis." After this all the Cardinals kissed the Pope, and the doors having been opened I was of the first who kissed his feet, which he would not have me do, saying that it would have been better next day. Nevertheless I did kiss them, and then all left the chapel, attending the Pope to his room, which he found so thoroughly gutted by the Conclavists that he was forced to betake himself into that of Cardinal Montepulciano, when he at once resolved on getting crowned next day in St. Peter's. While an this noise was going on, the gates of the Conclave were forced, and a mob entered, so that but for Messer Ascanio della Cornia^[17] the whole Conclave had a chance of being gutted. As soon as he had come in, measures of precaution were, however, taken for everything, and no one entered more but a few Prelates, who came to kiss the feet of his Holiness. All that night long one slept but badly from the sound and noise made by those who were removing their goods out of the Conclave. Next morning, Wednesday the 10th, the Pope and Cardinals entered the chapel an hour before day, according to the regulations; and mass having been read by the Sacrista, all gave their votes open in behalf of Cardinal Sta. Croce, who, not to vote for himself, gave his for the Cardinal of Naples. After this he was adored by all, and Cardinal Pisani, as senior deacon, went, according to custom, to a window, and said to the people, Papam habemus;—his name being Marcellus the Second, which he bore before, and would by no means change.'

1. This "as done on the occasion of the last interregnum, and the official paper, the Diario di Roma, of the 2d June 1846, contains in its dry notification of each day's events the summons 'of the Capitoline Militia by the Roman magistracy, according to ancient custom,' and the despatch of the 'noble Signori, the head men of the quarters of Regola and Campitelli, with orders to proceed without delay, attended by the Capitoline Militia and the faithful (i fedeli) carrying their maces, to the New Prison and the prisons of the Capitol, to open them and set free those guilty of slight offences who were detained there.' In former times it was invariably the custom, just before the Pope's decease, to remove into the Castle of St. Angelo, for safe keeping, all prisoners of state, or delinquents of a class the Papal authorities had an interest not to see set free.
2. See Bull of Pius IV. In Eligendlis, sect. 7.
3. The ring is so called from having engraved on its stone the figure of St. Peter drawing in his fisherman's net. According to Cancellieri, 'Notizie sopra l'Origine e ruso dell'Anello Piscatorio, Rome, 1823,' the earliest record of its use is of the year 1265. Originally it was nothing more than the Pope's private signet for his own correspondence. From the middle of the fifteenth cen- tury its use became reserved to the Pontifical utterances called Briefs, and bas remained so ever since. The dis- tinction betwet!n a Brief and Bull lies in degrees of weight and solemnity. The Bull is the most authori- tative expression of the Pontifical infallibility, as such almost incapable of repeal; while the Brief is directed to something of comparatively immediate and passing importance. The name of the former comes from its leaden seal, which is tied by a hempen cord to Bulls of ordinary import, and by a silken to those conferring Sees, and containing matters of grave weight. The style of the Bull runs always—' Pius IX., Episcopus Senus Servorum Dei, ad futuram' or 'perpetuam rei memoriam,' with date from the Incarnation, and signature of the various functionaries of the Apostolical Chancery, the document being written in Latin in mordern letters upon dark rough parchment. A Brief, which is likewise in Latin, has but the Pope's name at the beginning—'Pius Papa IX.'—is signed by the Cardinal Secretary of Briefs, bears date from the Nativity, and is written in modern letters upon soft white parch- ment. The die of the leaden seal affixed to Bulls was kept at the Vatican until Pius VII. solemnly deposited it at the Cancellaria, with pain of excommunication against whoever enters without express permission the room in which it is. At one period the Cistercian Friars had the privilege of furnishing the keepers of this seal. There is yet a third form of Papal expression in writing, called a Chirograph, the exact nature of which it is difficult to define. It appears indeed to have no binding force except what it may derive from personal respect for its author, and resembles in authority somewhat the minutes; which at times are drawn up in our offices, or the peculiar expression of Royal wishes formerly in use in Prussia, and termed Cabinets-order.
4. From the moment Conclave is opened, and during the whole of its duration, the Executive authority is vested in the Camerlengo, assisted by three Cardinals called Capi d'Ordine, who are chosen by ballot for three days.
5. Bull In Eligendis.
6. These prescriptions are repeated almost word for word in the Bull Apostolatus Officium issued in 1732 by Clement XII., the latest Papal statute on the subject of Conclaves.
7. This manuscript is in the possession of Signor Carinci, the worthy archivist of the Duke of Sermoneta.
8. At the corner of the streets running along the Mattei Palace there can still be seen the stone posts and rings for drawing chains during Conclave times.
9. A memorable dispute ensued out of this pretension on the part of the nobles during the interregnum of the Year 1700. Prince Vaini, a nobleman resident in Rome, and Knight of the French order of the Holy Ghost, assumed on this occasion the same privileges as the old Roman aristocracy, and even something more, it would appear. He absolutely resented the approach, even within a street's distance from his palace, of any Sbirri, and caused one to be beaten within an inch of his life who had been guilty of so much disrespect to his privileges. The insolence of the prince's armed retainers grew to be so great that the whole quarter became subjected to a rule of ruffianism which made it necessary for the authorities at last to interfere. A body of Sbirri early one morning took by surprise the guard-house of Prince Vaini's hangers-on, which was situated on the ground floor of his residence: where- upon the prince prepared for an armed defence, and at the same time invoked the protection of the French Ambassador, who was the Prince of Monaco. The Ambassador, in four state coaches, and a retinue of armed men on foot, proceeded to the prince's palace to extend to him his sovereign protection, when the Sbirri and Papal soldiers drew up to receive him with due honours. But the Ambassador took up the matter in a high tone, and put his hand to his sword-hilt in ordering the Papal captain to leave the house of a prince who stood under French protection. This action of his was imitated by his followers, who all drew their swords and struck the Sbirri, whereupon these fired a volley, by which some were killed and wounded, and a regular skirmish ensued, in which the Ambassador himself narrowly escaped being struck. The Sacred College immediately did all in its power to apologize for what hall happened, but the Ambassador absolutely refused to be satisfied, and left Rome two days after for Tuscany in high dudgeon, nor would he return to Rome during the interregnum. A full account, with the official correspondence interchanged, will be found in the second volume, p. 99, E. 6, of the third edition of the Histoire des Conclaves, Cologne, 1703,—a book full of valuable information.
10. In the Lettere Facete e Piacevole di dit'ersi Huomini Grandi, 2 vols., Venice, 1601, is a letter from Messer Giulio Constantini, Secretary to the Cardinal of Trani, which gives a lively picture of the state of Rome during the intenegnum on death of Paul III. (1550.) It stands twice in the same collection—as a fragment, vol. i. p. 389, and in full, vol. ii. p. 1-16. 'Now, Signori, I have told you about the Papacy all I can call to mind of the late occurrences,' writes Messer Giulio, 'There remains only for me to tell of the delight of an interreguum, as Fra Bacio said to Pope Paul, who, when asked what was the finest festival in Rome, replied, "When a Pope dies and a new one is being made," in which he spoke true. For on occurrence of the former event you see the whole world run to arms, the prisons thrown open, the Sbirri fly, and the jailers hide. In the streets you must not think to find aught but pikes and partisans and firelocks, and never a man by himself, but squadrons of ten or twenty or thirty and more. Yet with all this license you should not fancy that much harm is done except between special enemies in the burst of passion, which time soothes down, so that to-day Rome might be traversed a bracche calate; and for my part during fifteen barren years that I have spent in it, never have I enjoyed, and never have I beheld, a finer time, nor greater liberty, nor rarer fun; and would ye have it otherwise when our masters are all locked up? while we are at liberty, eating off our heads, without a thought or an inconvenience of servitude, until there is such a surfeit of good that we repine at all this freedom. And then the amusement to hear the jabbering brokers in the Banchi who buy and sell and barter on odds so that whoever falls among them will never get away till after night-fall;' and here the Cardinal's Secretary proceeds to dilate with a detail not fit for repetition on the public display at this season in Carnival show, of certain ladies whose existence in Rome it has ever been the special duty of the Cardinal Vicar to suppress. 'Do not fancy,' he continues, in high spirits, 'that the Bargello goes after these; no such thing; for neither Court nor Tribunal, nor Ruota nor Chancery, are held; Advocate and Procurator and Cursors start with their hands in their girdles, and everyone enjoys this season of madness.' The Colounas, who had been banished by Paul III., availed themselves of this season of relaxed authority to recover forcibly their possessions, but this little act of rebellion Messer Giulio thinks nothing of, as it was unaccompanied by actual bloodshed. ' I forgot to mention how Signor Ascanio Colonna has taken again his old estate without the stroke of a lance or the drawing of a sword. Signor Fabrizio, his son, and Signor Camillo Colonna, and Signor Pirro are all here, and free room is given to whoever would fight in Piazza Santi Apostoli (the site of the Colonna Palace). What say you now to a vacancy in the See? Does it not seem finer vacant than filled, and just because it is so fine you need not wonder that these most reverend lords should put themselves into a sweat with efforts to sit in it? and sweat they will, so many of them are there who fain would get into it, while it is to be had only by one.'
11. When Benvenuto Cellini plied his calling in Rome he had his workshop in this locality; and it was while sitting in it—probably a dark vaulted chamber in the ground-floor of a palazzo, with an arch on the street to serve at once as door and window, such as are many shops in the older portions of Rome — that he was affronted by the insulting gestures of the goldsmith Pompeo, who, swaggering down the street, and infected with the licentious spirit of an interregnum season—for this happened when the Cardinals had just entered Conclave,—drew up opposite Benvenuto's shop, and insolently flouted the hot-blooded Florentine, until, unable any longer to check his passion, he bounded out after Pompeo, and for his sauciness stabbed him to the heart. (See Cellini's Autobiography, book i. ch. xv.)
12. Letter from an anonymous correspondent to Duke Ottavio Farnese, in Lettere di Principi, Venice, 1581, vol. iii. p. 169:—'Vostra Eccellenza sappi, che'l concorso delle genti prima de plebei, et poi de maggiori fu si fatto dalle 16 insino aIle 19 hore [at that season of the year corresponùing to our 11½ and 2½ o'clock in the afternoon] che da Campo di Fiore insino al Vaticano, non si poteva and are senza stretta et pericolo d'esser calpestato dalla turba et da cavalli: et se L'Eccellentissimo Signor Duca d'Urbino [who was Captain-General of the Church] non armava per tempo il Conclave di buone guardie, non e' dllbbio, che si correva a rompere et a saccheggiare insieme col palazzo di San Giorgio: Vi fu in tanto in Banchi chi vendé Ie cedule Farnesiane settanta scudi d' oro con tanta concorrenza de compra- tori d' esse, che se non sopragiungeva la notte, le facevano salire piu alto di prezzo, aspettando pur ogn' uno di punto in punto, che si publicasse l'adoratione, come gia fatta della persona di detto Reverendissimo signor suo fratello: pur questa mattina correvano le cedule sue a 10 et 12 con tutto, che siano sgannati gli animi dell' impressione presente di tal successo.'
13. It is proverbial that in Italy nothing is sacred from conversion into some reduction into numbers that are made available for the lottery. It is not the public alone, but the Conscript Fathers of the Church them- selves, who during Conclave-time contrive to indulge their gambling passions in numbers that are considered to represent the mystical operations of the Holy Ghost. Stendhal, who gives a very capital account of the Conclave in 1829 his Promenades dans Renne, has a good story of his, witnessing some inmate of the Conclave playing in the lottery through the wheel which serves for conveying meals in 'Just as after the inspection of two or three dinners all this kitchen-work bored us,' he writes, 'and we were on the point to withdraw, we saw a ticket come through the turning-wheel from with- in the Conclave, with the numbers 17 and 25 thereon, and the request to put it in the lottery. . . . These numbers might signify that in the morning's balloting the Cardinal occupying apartment 25 had 17 votes, or any other combination. The numbers 'were faithfully handed over to a servant of Cardinal P.'
14. The obligation of secrecy is as incumbent in law on the Concla\ists and officials as on the Cardinals. In 1829 the violation thereof was visited with public expulsion and imprisonment. 'A Conclavist (I believe the one of Cardinal Ruffo Scilla) and a porter (fachino),' writes the Modenese Envoy Ceccopieri, 'have been expelled and put in prison for having, in defiance of the oath of secrecy by which all are bound when setting foot in Conclave, caused it to be distinctly known that Cardinal de Gregorio would be chosen in ten days' time,-an election which, however, went off in smoke, through Cardinal Albani's entrance.'—Bianchi, Diplomazia Europea in ltalia, vol. ii. p. 430.
15. What may have been the particular ground of complaint against Guattani we have not been able to learn. The Chevalier de St. George enjoyed in Rome all the privileges conceded to a sovereign, and as such recommended Cardinals for nomination; it was to him that Cardinal Tencin owed the red hat, according to the President de Brosses.
16. In a letter without signature and without address, in 3d volume of the Lettere di Principi, Venice, 1581. Moroni ascribes it to Atanagi on authority not stated.
17. He was a nephew of Paul III., invested with the uncommon title of Consul for this Conclave, not without umbrage having been taken by the Roman nobility, according to the same Conclavist :-'Nel medesimo giorno alle 21 hore, delli Cardinali, che si trovavono in Roma fu fatta congregatione sopra le cose et governo della Citta, dell a quale il Signor Ascanio dell a Cornia fu eletto Consule, benche questi Baroni Romani alquanto conteudessero, dicendo essere officio loro haver cura dell a Citta, poi hebhero pazienza.'—Lettere di Principi, vol. iii p. 160.