represented before Cromwell called "The Marriage of the Pope," in which Donna Olympia was represented rejecting his addresses on account of his extreme ugliness, till, having in vain offered her one of the keys to induce her to consent, he attains his object at the cost of both of them! The Emperor again had said to the Papal nuncio, "Your Pope, my lord, has an easy time of it with Madame Olympia to put him to sleep."

Driven by these and many other such manifestations of public feeling, Innocent determined to make a great effort. He announced to Olympia, with every expression of regret for the hard necessity, that she must quit the Vatican; and knowing well what he would have to endure if he exposed himself to her reproaches and entreaties, he forbade her to come for the future into his presence.

But the weak and infirm old man had far overcalculated his moral strength. The prop on which he had relied during his years of best vigour could not be voluntarily relinquished now in the time of his decrepitude. Very soon Olympia obtained permission to make secret visits to the Vatican. These were made generally every night; and this nightly secret coming and going at untimely hours threatened to become more ridiculous, if not more seriously scandalous, in the eyes of the lampooning Roman world than an acknowledged residence in the Vatican. Besides, such an arrangement did not adequately meet the necessities of the case. Olympia pointed out to the infirm old man that her constant care and superintendence were necessary to his personal comfort-perhaps to his safety. So Rome very shortly

saw the "Papessa " once again at her old home in the Vatican; and, as from the nature of the circumstances must necessarily have been the case, her power and entire disposal of the functions and revenue of the Papacy became more absolute than ever..

But the rapidly declining health of Innocent warned. her that her time was short, and prudence might have counselled her to make some preparation for the storm, which she must have well known she would have to face after his death, by moderation if not relinquishing the corrupt and offensive practices of all sorts which were daily added in the minds of the Romans to the long account against her. Her observation and reading of the world had, however, suggested to her a different policy. If more danger had to be encountered, more money would be needed to meet it. Donna Olympia's

faith in the omnipotence of money was unbounded. Only let her have money-power enough, and she doubted not that she should be able to ride out the storm.

So she applied herself with more energy and assiduity than ever to the two objects which shared her entire care-the collection of cash by the most unblushing and audacious rapine and venality, and the keeping the breath of life to the last possible instant within the sinking frame of the aged Pontiff. The latter task was so important, that, both for the insuring of proper attention and for providing against the danger of poison, she kept the Pope almost under lock and key, attending to his wants with her own hands, and allowing him to touch no food that had not been prepared under her own

eyes. During the last year of his life she literally hardly ever quitted him. Once a week, we read, she left the Vatican secretly by night, accompanied by several porters carrying sacks of coin, the proceeds of the week's extortions and sales, to her own palace; and during these short absences she used to lock the Pope into his chamber and carry the key with her!

At last the end was visibly at hand. During the last ten days of his life the Pope's mind was wholly gone. And in these ten days, by rapidly selling off for what she could get for them nominations to vacant benefices and "Prelature," Olympia is said to have amassed half a million crowns! Her last transaction was with a canon, who had been for some time previously in treaty with her for a "Prelatura." He had offered fifty, while she had stood out for eighty thousand crowns; and the bargain had gone off. In the last hours of Innocent's life she sent for this man and told him that she would take his fifty thousand. He said he had dissipated twenty thousand of the sum since that time, and had only thirty thousand left. "Well!" said the unblushing dealer, "since you can do no better, hand them over, and you shall have the Prelatura."" So the money was paid, and the nomination obtained from the dying Pope in extremis.

'

Innocent died on the 7th January, 1655, having reigned ten years and three months. His body remained three days utterly abandoned. Donna Olympia, who had of course left the Vatican the moment that breath left Innocent's body, said that she was a poor widow, whose means were entirely inadequate to

the expense of the obsequies of a Pope. At last a canon, who had been in the Pope's service for many years, but who had for a long time past been out of favour, came forward, and at the sacrifice of a considerable sum paid the last honours to his old patron.

For the first time for many years there had been a Papacy without nepotism, and without a reigning cardinal nephew. And though, as regarded the administration of the Holy See, the credit of the Papacy, and the general tone of morality in the Apostolic Courts, matters had, in this absence of nepotism, changed for the worse, yet at Innocent's death the change that hence arose was seen to be a very important one. The Conclave was without a natural leader, nor was there any bond which as usual banded together the "creatures" of Innocent X. An anecdote was current, which has been preserved by Ranke, that when a proposal was made that they should choose a leader-a "head" whose captaincy they should follow in the Conclave (most naturally the Cardinal Medici, who was the senior of Innocent's creatures)—some of them replied that each man had a head as well as feet of his own, and needed no other. The conclavist who has narrated the story of the Conclave that followed the death of Innocent declares that no less than twenty-two of the "creatures" of Innocent aspired to the Papacy, each for himself! The Spanish ambassador, the Duca di Terranuova, gave them the name of the "squadrone volante," and to a certain degree they seem to have acted together.

It is said that the Cardinal Ottobuono, one of them,

exclaimed at the death-bed of Innocent, "What we have to do is to elect an honest man!" "If you are in scarch of an honest man," replied Cardinal Azzolini, another of "the squadron," "there is one there," pointing to the Sienese Cardinal Chigi as he spoke. Chigi, in fact, in the course of the affairs, mainly diplomatical, which his life had been passed in transacting for the Apostolic See, had acquired the reputation of an upright, able, and moderate man, of blameless life, and was further known to condemn very strongly the corruptions and abuses which had characterized the pontificate that had just come to a conclusion. The way to elect Chigi Pope, however, was by no means clear. He was strongly opposed by the whole force of the French interest. Chigi had been nuncio at Cologne when Mazarin, driven from France by the fronde, was in Germany striving to prepare the means of recovering the power and position he had lost; and Mazarin perceived, or imagined himself to perceive, that Chigi had not given him the support which he had expected from him. From that time Mazarin was his enemy, and did his utmost to prevent his election to the Papacy.

But there was another strong influence and power in the Conclave-that of Cardinal Barberini. We parted from him and his when, vanishing behind a cloud, they went down in the first days of Innocent's Papacy. But now was the time for them to raise their heads, bruised but not crushed by the storm, once again. It might have been supposed that the least likely of all alliances would have been one between the Barberini and the popess of the Pope who had so severely punished them.