with the necessity for surrounding such elections in future with safeguards against the recurrence of similar perplexing returns. Accordingly, when Alexander at last found himself the acknowledged victor in the struggle he had so long waged with undying spirit, he immediately convoked a Council in that Lateran Palace which was the official residence of the Latin Metropolitan, and therein caused a decree to be promulgated that no Papal election should he valid with a majority of less than two-thirds of those voting,—a provision that has remained in force ever since.
It had thus been solemnly ruled that the power of making a Pope should reside with the Cardinals alone, and that no Pope coùld be legitimate except by the vote of two-thirds of the electors present; but as to any obligatory conditions of form to be observed in such election, little, if anything, had as yet been defined. On this head, as on the others, the organic laws that have definitely regulated matters were plainly dictated by instincts springing out of practical experiences. The importation through the direct agency of the Papacy of a French dynasty into Italy, in the person
