The cardinals went to dine in their separate cells. After siesta and before prayers those who could walk took exercise in the galleries: others read the “Daily Office” with their chaplains. There was conversation, canvassing. In the evening, they sang Veni Creator and went to work again. Orezzo gained Anziano and Portolano, raising his total to ten. The nine French and the two Erse, with Ferita, Bosso, Pietratta, Sega, Conella, acceded to Ragna, raising his total to twenty-four. Serafino-Vagellaio kept but five supporters, viz. his brother and the four Germans. Gentilotto lost the nine French: but gained Gennaio, di Bonti, Cassia, Creta, bringing his total to seven. The defection of the two Erse reduced Fiamma’s adherents to eleven. And once more the puff of smoke emptied the Square of St. Peter’s.
Private conferences occupied time: candles burned late into the night. Violet silk robes susurrated between violet serge curtains everywhere. There were colloquies, hints, exhortations, arguments, promises, promises dictated, suggested, given. Ragna took the opinion of his friends concerning a commodious pontifical name. Vivole offered him “Formosus the Second” and a pinch of Capuchin snuff out of the pages of his breviary: but Berstein preferred “Aloysius the First.” The Secretary of State would bear both in mind. Cohesion in clots began. The French, Germans, Spaniards, and Erse, already were united in four groups. What the leader of each group would do, the nine, the four, the three, and the two would do. By demonstrating that cardinal-deacons occasionally were raised to Titles, or Suburban sees, by Popes Whom they had elected, Cardinal-Archdeacon Macca collected a little diaconal fraction of four, himself, Pietratti, Sega, and Pepato. Ten Italians, viz. Conella, Manco, di Petra, Ferita, Creta, Cassia, Gennaio, di Bonti, Sarda, Bosso, agreed to vote together. Mundo refused to join the Spaniards; and Nefski, the Germans, on account of sundry events in Poland. Ferraio, Archbishop of Milan, would stick to Fiamma under all circumstances, because they both had been raised to the cardinalature together. Saviolli threw in his lot with the Keltic and American cardinals. Della Volta was in sympathy with Saviolli and his friends. Del Drudo delivered himself of the cryptic sentence that one who had been a majordomo ought to know a fresh egg from a stale one. And Cardinal-Vicar Respiro, and Riciso, Archbishop of Turin, agreed with del Drudo.
So in the morning the third capitular assembly revealed an extraordinary state of affairs. Orezzo lost all his supporters but four, viz. Moccolo, Agnello, Anziano, Portolano. Serafino-Vagellaio lost all votes except his brother’s. Gentilotto lost all but three, viz. Fiamma, Zafferano, Mantenuti. Fiamma retained his loyal eleven. And Ragna began to score. First, he kept Orezzo and Serafino-Vagellaio, the Benedictine, the Capuchin, the Jesuit, and the three Spaniards. The nine French (for a wonder) remained constant to him for two consecutive days. So did the two Erse: indeed O’Tuohy, who as a student had vowed that he never would look a woman in the face, (and kept his vow,) was as persistent as he had been when Leo XIII had tried to force him into the primacy of Eblana in the teeth of electors who rejected him. The four Germans, the four deacons, and the decade of Italians also joined Ragna, whose tally went in jumps (so to speak) from two, to five, and eight, and seventeen, and nineteen, and twenty-three, and twenty-seven, and thirty-seven—
According to the Constitution of Alexander III, made at the Council of Lateran in the year of the Fructiferous Incarnation of the Son of God MCLXXX, and confirmed by subsequent Bulls of Gregory XV and Urban VIII, the votes of two-thirds of the cardinals present at the Scrutiny are required for the election of a Pope. Not one of Their Eminencies was ignorant of the fact that two-thirds of fifty-seven is thirty-eight. Wherefore, when the tallies showed thirty-seven votes for Ragna, and the Junior Scrutator stood up with just one more billet in his hand, some began stertorously to breathe through their noses: some went mauve and some magenta: while those of a phlegmatic habit of body reached for the cords of the canopies above their thrones, which descend at the manifestation of Christ’s Vicar.
Harrera read the name “Ragna.”
What happened next happened very quickly. The Scrutators broke the seals of the billets one by one; and Harrera read aloud the names of the electors as well as the name of the elected. At the thirteenth, he read, “I, Cardinal Mariano Ragna, elect to the Supreme Pontificate the Most Reverend Lord my Lord Cardinal Mariano Ragna.”
This was a horrid example of the clever strong man, who loses control of his directive faculty, in the moment of excitement. No one could have done such a thing out of wilful wickedness: for the stringency of conclavial regulations effectually denies success to nefarious practices. Everyone knows that. The Secretary of State, by voting for himself just when he was on the verge of achieving the most tremendous of all ambitions, forfeited his own suffrage; and his election was nulled by defect of a single vote. What passions dilacerated his breast, God only knows. He shut-up himself in his cell
