Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/51

 tion Rome is as it were placed under sequestration. Even the law courts suspend their sittings, and in every branch of the Executive there is only that amount of activity which is indispensably requisite to prevent torpor from sinking into absolute dissolution. This state of things proceeds from the strict limitations imposed by Papal decrees upon the provisional authorities called into existence during the interregnum—limitations that were devised with the view of removing temptations to spin out the tenure of provisional office. Systematically the jealousy of Popes has carefully circumscribed the powers to be exercised by the Sacred College during a vacancy of the Papal Chair until they have become stripped of all serious initiatory faculty, and extend only over the