Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/122

106 was so numerous as to cause a pressure for accommodation, the gallery over the vestibule of St. Peter's used to be also given to the Cardinals, as was the case in the Conclave of 1740, witnessed by the President de Brosses.

The distribution of these diminutive houses was always by lot. The one who had fared best in the raffle on the above occasion was Cardinal Tencin, who had drawn the hut in the middle of the gallery, so that the niche of its big central window, walled up until a new Pope has to he proclaimed therefrom, formed a spacious extra apartment at the back of his booth. 'But,' adds the President, 'for this convenience he will be prettily rifled and pulled to pieces when the new Pope comes to the balcony to give his blessing to the people in the square below.' The great hall at the top of the Scala Reggia, which serves as a vestibule to the Sistine and Pauline chapels, remained always free, and was the playground of the imprisoned Cardinals,—the spot in which