course with men equal to giving him counsel in his delicate position. The Cardinal made the best use of his opportunity, therefore, to urge on the forlorn Pope the necessity of taking measures, without loss of time, to guard effectually against the not improbable danger of a controverted election, in the event of matters being left in so novel a situation to the undirected instincts of a dispersed and disorganized Sacred College. Pius VI. shrank at first, with the timidity of his advanced years, from the energetic counsels of the resolute Cardinal, who, however, pressed him so vigorously that before leaving Florence he had succeeded in obtaining the Pope's acquiescence in his proposals. These were to the purport that a special Bull was indispensable to give the Cardinals the requisite facilities for securing the certain election of a Pope under existing circumstances; and for a Bull to meet the case a sketch was accordingly submitted by Cardinal Antonelli[1] to the Pope, who expressed his agreement with its substance, and charged his secretary, the ex-Jesuit Marotti, to draw it out in a formal shape.
- ↑ Baldassari distinctly fixes the authorship of the draft.- V 01. iii. p. 147.
