Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/201



T a moment when, in the ordinary course of nature, a Papal election must be a thing not far distant, it will not be inopportune to append to this outline of the constitutional law of Conclaves a summary of the incidents that marked the last one held. At this season precedents may be usefully reverted to, and though vast physical changes, reacting necessarily on Conclaves, as on all human institutions, have been introduced since 1846, the moral elements which then came into play cannot be said to have become obsolete. There was then no railway communication in Italy, and no electric telegraph was then known. Tidings took many days, in 1846, to travel with the greatest expedition from Rome to Vienna or Paris, whereas now, a few instants after the