Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/635

Rh of the fraternity to elect the most aged knights to the supreme control, with a view to the frequent vacancy of the post. A more suicidal policy could scarcely have been conceived. Men worn out by a long life of excitement and enterprise could hardly be expected to retain sufficient energy to conduct with prudence and skill a government fraught with so many difficulties both from within and without. Where inflexible determination and vigorous promptitude in action were the essential requisites to a successful administration, these feeble and decrepit veterans, sinking almost into their dotage, were utterly useless. It is mainly owing to this fact that during the seventeenth century the power of the Grand-Master and the vitality of the Order itself, suffered so rapid and marked a diminution.

In pursuance of this short-sighted policy, Vasconcellos was followed in 1623 by Antoine de Paule, grand-prior of St. Gilles, who was seventy-one years old at the time of his election. He, however, succeeded in disappointing the general expectations of an early vacancy, by living to the age of eighty-five. De Paule’s rule is celebrated as being the epoch in which the last chapter-general was convoked until near the end of the eighteenth century. The unpopularity of these great councils had been steadily augmenting. The difficulty of maintaining the magisterial authority during their session was so great that no Grand-Master after de Paule felt disposed to call into existence a council in which he himself had so little weight and influence. Upon this occasion the Pope had insisted that the grand-inquisitor should take his seat as president of the chapter. De Paule and his council remonstrated, pointing out that it was diametrically opposed to the constitution of their Order that a stranger should assume the position of president in its chief assembly, and stating that the fraternity would never tolerate the intrusion. The Pope, however, was obstinate, and insisted upon the appointment being acquiesced in. The aged Grand-Master had not sufficient energy to support him in a broil with the court of Rome, so he yielded the point without further remonstrance. it is probable that the younger members of the Order would, in some open manner, have resented the intrusion thus forced on them, had not do Paule sent the majority of