Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/197

 Rh expressed, that only a deliberate spirit of perversion could venture on pretending to misunderstand its scope. The groundlessness of the interpretations which it has been sought to set on the oath taken by the Pope is rendered still more clear by a second Bull he swears along 'with the other, and which is coupled therewith as a sort of commentary and supplementary illustration. This Bull, issued in 1692 by Alexander and known by the title of 'Constitutio Moderatoria Donationum,' is so directly levelled against the immoderate grants made by Popes to their kinsmen as to name these without disguise, and to have put it beyond the stretch of the most wilful casuistry to attempt to twist the plain meaning of the text. A more confounding illustration does not exist of the practice once recognised in the Court of Rome than is here indelibly afforded by a Pope writing with all the weight of authority and the studied solemnity of a clearness of speech to baffle the powers of misapprehension, or extenuation. The preamble states that the Constitution is promulgated for 'the moderating of gifts and the distribution of ecclesiastical revenues to the kinsmen and connexions