tion Rome is as it were placed under sequestration. Even the law courts suspend their sittings, and in every branch of the Executive there is only that amount of activity which is indispensably requisite to prevent torpor from sinking into absolute dissolution. This state of things proceeds from the strict limitations imposed by Papal decrees upon the provisional authorities called into existence during the interregnum—limitations that were devised with the view of removing temptations to spin out the tenure of provisional office. Systematically the jealousy of Popes has carefully circumscribed the powers to be exercised by the Sacred College during a vacancy of the Papal Chair until they have become stripped of all serious initiatory faculty, and extend only over the
day's events the summons 'of the Capitoline Militia by the Roman magistracy, according to ancient custom,' and the despatch of the 'noble Signori, the head men of the quarters of Regola and Campitelli, with orders to proceed without delay, attended by the Capitoline Militia and the faithful (i fedeli) carrying their maces, to the New Prison and the prisons of the Capitol, to open them and set free those guilty of slight offences who were detained there.' In former times it was invariably the custom, just before the Pope's decease, to remove into the Castle of St. Angelo, for safe keeping, all prisoners of state, or delinquents of a class the Papal authorities had an interest not to see set free.
