Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/104

 event of grave peril. Between the before-mentioned draft for a Brief and this Bull there is only one difference of consequence. The validity of the proposed Brief was expressly limited to one occasion, pro hac vice, whereas the provisions in the Bull are as expressly appointed to hold good on the recurrence of any like state of public affairs that would threaten the legitimate action of the Church's grand electors. What in the former document was expressed as a mere act of dispensation, in this deed assumed the expression of an organic law, modifying permanently the practice of the Church under given circumstances, and promulgated with the formally-declared concurrence of its princes-the Cardinals. Grave peril was not slow in overtaking the Holy See. On the 20th February 1798, Pius VI. was carried away a prisoner into Tuscany by the French, the Cardinals were dispersed, and Rome converted into a Republic. After a short sojourn at Siena, the Pope was finally deposited in the old Carthusian monastery near Florence, under strict guard, with the smallest conceivable retinue, and cut off from free intercourse with his ministers and the scattered Sacred College, the most of