Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/117

 clauses in this important piece of Papal legislation, which dropped out of general memory in a manner difficult to understand. In comprehensiveness, it cannot be said to have fallen behind Cardinal Antonelli's rejected draft; the only provision in which that was not adopted being the questionable proposal for proxies. In every other respect the new Bull was even larger and more defined in its dispensing clauses; so that certainly the duration of Conclave, when it actually met after the death of Pius was not due to its having been forcibly tied down by dictatorial forms hampering independent action. In the Chancery of the Vatican, the precedent thus afforded was, however, not allowed to pass out of mind. It has not been forgotten by the men who are charged with the custody of the machinery of the Papacy, that there exists this authority for dispensing with old-established formalities for a Papal election when deemed inexpedient, and the authority, we know, has been appealed to at least on one occasion before Pius 's time. We have it on the authority of one yet alive, and who was admitted to Gregory 's especial intimacy, and, in virtue of his position, attended