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clavist who has left a narrative of this Conclave, who so judged did not consider that "in these Conclaves, at least as far as has hitherto been seen, the Popes have always been elected by the heads of parties," and the other cardinals, be they as numerous as you will, have followed their lead. And the reason of this has been, either because the less distinguished members of the College have been in some way bound to the leaders of it or have feared to separate themselves from them, or because they have found that united in groups they were strong, but were powerless when isolated. The greater or less length of Conclaves has thus been seen to depend, says the conclavist, not on the larger or smaller number of the cardinals, but on the greater or lesser resolution and obstinacy of their leaders.

The present Conclave, he goes on to show, was remarkable as having been wholly uninterfered with by any power or influence foreign to it. It was not surprising, he says, that neither the Emperor nor the King of France took much heed of what was being done in Rome, for both were too much occupied by the troubles and difficulties which surrounded them. But it was strange that Philip of Spain, the son of such a father as Charles V., who had always so well understood the importance of keeping a watchful eye on the papal elections, being, too, as the conclavist says, free from trouble at home, and, moreover, having such large and important interests in Italy, should have made no attempt to meddle with the election in any way. Those who are now better acquainted with Philip II. and his doings than the conclavist could have been, will pro

bably not agree with him in supposing that Philip did not interest himself in the result and management of the election, however little his hand may have been seen in it at Rome.

The leaders of parties, to whom the conclavist attributes all the responsibility of the election, were on this occasion two, who were such in a more marked and special degree than usual. These were the Cardinal Farnese, whom we have already seen as the controlling spirit of so many Conclaves, and Carlo Borromeo, the celebrated Archbishop of Milan, and still more celebrated Saint Charles. It would be difficult to imagine to oneself two men more strikingly-one might say more picturesquely-contrasted than these two. They were so not merely, perhaps even not so much, by reason of their own distinctive characters, though these were dissimilar enough, as by the position and surroundings in which the circumstances of the time had placed them. Farnese was markedly the representative of the old, and Borromeo of the new day, and that at a period when the change in the spirit of the time had been most rapid and most strongly marked. One might wish that Landor had thought of giving us an "Imaginary Conversation" between these two men. How wonderfully he would have brought before us the contrast between the two representatives of epochs so near to each other, and yet so far asunder! How strange, how new-fangled, how pitiably enthusiastic and fanatical, must Borromeo's ideas of the business upon which they were met have seemed to the old veteran of so many Conclaves, saturated from his earliest youth upwards with the very

quintessence of thoroughly mundane policy and intrigue, which had in his day made the social atmosphere of Rome! It was hardly possible that there should not have been some bitterness in the smile with which he saw this saintly young archbishop from the north come to upset all the old Roman ideas, and turn the Roman world of his day upside down! Farnese's day was nearly done now; and we can fancy him saying to himself that it was well that it should be so!

The position and authority of these two most influential cardinals in the Conclave was analogous to that which their age and circumstances had caused them to exercise in the world in general. And Borromeo's influence was by the nature of it the more powerful of the two. His following, consisting mainly of the younger men, the "creatures" of Pius IV., who was his uncle, of his own cousin, the Cardinal Altemps, also a nephew of the late Pope, and his friends, were disposed to be led by him implicitly. The old cardinals, who were attached to Farnese, many of them men of high and princely birth and station, were so mainly by virtue of old ties and friendships, of habitual respect for the great Farnese name, and from having acted with him on many another occasion, rather than from any of those more active motives which are connected with plans and ambitions and hopes and fears. And it is evident that such a following could not be led with that assumption of authority and certainty that Borromeo could exercise and count upon with regard to his own party. The passage of the conclavist's narrative in which he sums up the value in the Conclave of these differences is not

a little amusing, as showing how far the new ideas and feelings which were moving the world were from having yet penetrated to that inmost sanctuary of the old, in which a Roman conclavist lived and breathed and had

his being. "But if Borromeo," says he, "was thus superior to Farnese in his authority over his followers, the latter far excelled him in calmness of disposition, in resoluteness of will, in abundance of connections, and in having been in many Conclaves, and well accustomed for many long years to the various accidents of fortune, and all the difficulties incidental to the government of men. Borromeo, besides the want of dexterity which always accompanies the novice in any business, was of a subtle mind, and by nature extremely obstinate, which made negotiating and acting with him very difficult; and all the more so because his designs were fixed and rooted in a rigorous zeal for religion, making, as he did, open profession of an excessive goodness in such sort that it was impossible to move him from any impression he had received, either by persuasion or any regard for civil considerations." Evidently a very impracticable fellow to deal with! When he was coming up to Rome from Milan on the news of the Pope's illness, with the probability that he could not recover, he had an interview with the Duke of Florence; and it would have been natural and proper, says the conclavist, seeing that the Duke was on terms of intimate friendship with the King of Spain, whose subject Borromeo was, that the latter should have consulted with the Duke respecting the election to be made when the vacancy of the Papal throne should occur. But though he had every oppor

tunity, and though news reached him at Florence that the Pope's condition was desperate, he would not speak a single word with the Duke respecting the coming election. "And this, it is said, was because there is a Bull prohibiting, under pain of excommunication, all negotiation or consultation respecting the election of a new Pope before the death of his predecessor." Such nonsense, you know! we cannot help hearing the old conclavist muttering to himself as he wrote. "When he got to Rome, and when the Pope was dead," continues the narrator, "he showed the same harshness to Signor Marc Antonio Colonna, whose son had married his sister. Signor Marc Antonio was so offended by his harshness and ways of going on, that he left Rome and went away to Marino. Afterwards, however, being apparently ashamed of himself, the Cardinal begged him to return, and told him what he purposed to do, not to consult with him, as any one would have said was due to Signor Marc Antonio's intelligence and knowledge of Rome and its affairs, but simply to pay him the compliment of showing confidence in him."

How are you to deal with a fellow whose crabbed harshness is such that he takes the threatenings of a Bull menacing excommunication au serieux, and declines consultation with his lay family connections as to his vote in the Conclave?

Borromeo seems to have gone into Conclave with the intention of giving all his support to Cardinal Moroni, and the general opinion was that he would be the new Pope. Moroni was, indeed, a man with probably higher claims to the suffrages of the electors, his colleagues,

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