Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/167

 Rh his vote, while in the middle six similar tables stand apart for those Cardinals who may fear being overlooked if they wrote and folded their ballot-papers at their own stalls. On the Gospel side the Cardinal Dean occupies the first seat, being followed by the others in the order of precedence, so that the senior Deacon sits opposite to him on the Epistle side of the altar, in front of which is a large table, with the chalice serving as a ballot-box, while at the back is the fireplace, wherein, after an inconclusive ballot, the papers are burned, whose smoke, issuing through the chimney, is watched for at a set hour by the crowd on the Piazza as the signal that Rome is still without a Sovereign,— the Church still without a Head.

The ingenuity of some ecclesiastical antiquaries has amused itself in fancifully recognising infinite variations in the modes of Papal elections. But even if warranted in fact, these distinctions must be held to be without any living value, for the Bull of Gregory which is the capital statute on the subject, explicitly declares that there are only three modes in which a Pope can be lawfully created: by inspiration, by compromise, and by ballot. The first, which