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
