Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/155

 Rh assumed capable of occurrence, and that injury should befall the freedom and union of the Apostolical College in its so needful mystic body.' By this Chirograph the Pope accordingly abrogated the sentence striking with invalidity an election in which Coscia took part, with the proviso, however, that an election, to be canonical, must not gain its obligatory majority of two-thirds by his individual vote; and that during his ten years of strict confinement this Cardinal's electoral privileges should be restricted to voting, and not entitle him to obtain the suffrages of the Sacred College, because it would be unseemly to consider eligible for Head of the Church an individual let out of prison only for as long as Conclave lasted. This is what happened, therefore, on the death of Clement In the same volume containing this Chirograph, there is the autograph letter of Cardinal Coscia, dated the 6th February 1740, from the Castle of St. Angelo, and written to the Cardinal-Nephew of the late Pope, in which he claims to be set free for admission to Conclave, a request which was at once conceded. The President de Brosses, as he was going home from witnessing the procession of the Cardinals