r the purpose of kissing
his feet. One would have thought that, looking to the state of things in
the city, the time of the interregnum would have been the very last to
select for ladies to venture into the streets. It would seem, however,
that the Roman matrons thought otherwise. Cancellieri says that it was
in those days a common saying among Roman ladies that "Happy were they
who were married to Spaniards!" For it would seem that the Spanish
husbands in Rome did not think it necessary to enforce this restraint on
their wives--a circumstance that rather curiously contradicts our
general notions of Spanish marital feelings and discipline.

In truth, the condition of Rome during the period of the conclave down
to very recent times affords a singular evidence of the virtue of the
old French formula, "Le roi est mort! Vive le roi!" as signifying the
non-existence of any period of transition between one embodiment of law
and authority and his successor; for the absence of any similar
provision in the case of the popes made Rome a veritable hell upon earth
during the period of a papal election.

But if the city outside the walls within which the purple fathers of the
Church were deliberating presented a scene which was a disgrace and a
scandal to Christendom, that which was being enacted within those walls
was very often still more profoundly scandalous. Never probably has any
human institution existed in which practice was more grossly and
notoriously in disaccord with pretensions and theory, and with respect
to which the highest and most sacred of all conceivable human sanctions
was so shamelessly desecrated and profaned to the lowest and vilest
uses.

Before touching on this part of the subject, however, it is necessary
first to give in as few words as possible some intelligible account of
the formal regulations and method of holding the conclave and electing
the pontiff. All the regulations, which have been made with extreme
minuteness, together with the subsequent modifications of them by
different pontiffs, would occupy far too much space to be given here.
The following rules seem to be the essential points. Ten days, including
that of the pope's death, are to be allowed for the coming of absent
cardinals. This delay may, however, be dispensed with for urgent
reasons. The conclave should properly be held in the building in which
the pope died. Regulations of various degrees of rigor have been made
for securing the