yet at all times been general.[1] As a rule, the secret of sitting Conclaves has not been denser to penetrate for those having an interest to do so than the secret of pending conferences generally are for parties engaged in working and counter-working political plots. In Father Theiner's elaborate history of Clement XIV., for the vindication of his election against the charge of uncanonical engagements taken beforehand to sacrifice the Jesuits, we have been furnished with the confidential correspondence day by day between immured Cardinals and their confederates outside. Also it is amusing to read the involved explanations through which the perplexed author tries to extenuate this flagrant violation of the plain letter of Papal Bulls. There is no publication which sheds so full a light into the whole process of Conclave proceedings as these
- ↑ 'We may here notice,' says M. Bergenroth, 'that the idea that the Conclaves in the sixteenth century were really secret must be dismissed at once. The ceremony of walling up some entrances was observed, but, as the Duke of Sessa 'wrote on occasion of the next election (Clement the Seventh's), only as an empty form. Other doors remained open, and the Cardinals assembled in the Conclave communicated freely with the outer world.'—Calendar of Negotiations, vol. ii., Introduction, p. cxxxvii.
