Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/82

 perspicacity against those who were in attendance on the Pope.

By the ninth day everything requisite for proceeding to business must have been terminated; the Conclave must be ready to receive its inmates, and these must have been selected. For a Conclave comprises a whole population locked up in attendance upon the possible wants of the immured Eminences. It would take pages to give a list of all the different categories of functionaries and servants who have to share the privileges of this imprisonment,—from the Maggiordomo to the Father Confessor, and from the Head-Physician down to the Barbers and Carpenters and Sweepers. All these categories are carefully indicated in grave Papal rescripts, as also the exact number in each which it is allowable for a Conclave to contain; the nomination always resting with the general congregation of Cardinals, except in the case if the Conclavists who are private secretaries to the Cardinals, and therefore selected by their patrons within specified limitations. These Conclavists have often played a most important part in Papal elections, many of which have owed their issue to the adroit practices of