Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/112

 radical changes, had been the work of one single daring Cardinal, who, the Pope was uncomfortably conscious, had used in some degree over him the ascendency of an imperious nature that coerces rather than convinces. Pius became uneasy at the consequences of what he had engaged himself to do of his own authority, and postponed the issue of the Bull until he had obtained on its contents the opinions of a certain number of Cardinals, especially of those in Venetia, according to Baldassari. Means were found to communicate with them, and their replies reached the Pope. The impression made on the minds of the consulted Prelates by the document was undisguisedly unfavourable. The notion of proxies was particularly condemned; and the poor old Pope, frightened and troubled at the angry feelings excited by the draft, timidly drew hack, and determined to drop entirely a Bull which he himself had been so loath to entertain at first. But a complete abstention of this kind from remedial legislation was not what was wanted by those whose criticisms had so painfully moved the Pope. They had objected, indeed, to the Bull as framed, but they had