The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-29
Cardinals i'm Conclave.

sister ln-law Donna Ol1mpla, and her niece,
the Princess of Romano, for whom the weak
old man had made sale of everything during
his pontifcate, from the red hat of the cardi-
nal down to the Office of spy of the police,
and even to the sentences of the courts of
justice, left him to his fate as soon as they
found that no soups or essences, none of the
eunningly devised liquids on which he had
existed since he had been unable to take solid
food would continue to keep him alive.
Donna OLYMPIA, indeed, took to her bed as
a means of avoiding further trouble about a
moribund pope, and gave out that she was
too ill to nurse him any longer Both ladies,
however, took care to have his palace sacked
before the breath was out of his body, and
Donna OLYMPIA surrounded her own house in
the Piazza Navona with six hundred soldiers,
to preserve all old and recent spoils safe dur
ing the critical period of papal interregnum,
when the populace were more riotous than
usual, and until new pope should be elected
in conclRve.
If, however the populace did not besiege
her palace and relieve her of her ill-gotten
gains, it was not the fault of Pasquin.
Each morning the headless little marble
figure was covered with pasquinades of bitter
and terrible force, directed against OLYMPIA
and the wealth she had amassed by her extor
tionate abuse of her influence on the late
Pope. OLYMPIA, however, replied that public
report did her injustice; that she was in re-
ality poor, frightfully poor, SO poor that she
was unable to pay for the funeral expenses of
the dead Innocent. Who would have buried
the old man nobody can tell, had not friend
of early days, poor canon whom Innocent
had ill-treated on his advent to power taken
on him the charge of the funeral, which was
of the meanest. No torches or wax tapers,
only two talow Candles lit up the wrinkled
and painted face of the papal corpse as
it lay in mockery of state beneath the dome
of st. Peters.
The day after the Popes interment, Janua-
ry 1S, 1866, the cardinals met according to
custom in conclave in the Vatican. There
| we're sixty y-nine of them. Unhappy men!
their fate created much commiseration among
some of the ambassadors and ENJOYS of the
European princes, who, according to rule,
visited their cells on the day on which
they were to be shut up, to see that all was
arranged in due order, and the conclave
established according to rule. Sixty-nine
cardinals, accustomed, most of them,
to fare sqmptuously, and to live
in vast palaces adorned with the
finest productions of ancient and modern art,
to what a wretched sojourn had they to sub
NIT till it should please Divine Inspiration to
be merciful to them, and enable their sacred
| college 10 combine in the election of a new
| pope! Two cells, one for himself and one
| for his two attendants, were allotted to each
cardinal; and there they must live, and sleep,
and eat their meals, which have to be sent
through the little wicket at the gate, till the
| close of the conclave. The present conclave,
however, was fortunate one for the poor
cardinals in one respect. 1t had among
its members many excellent players at picquet,
and two three ecclesiastics of very
! humorous spirit, who aided considerably to
enliven the monotony of its confinement,
| which proved in this instance O long one. The
| Of oil NJ
who, however, labored under this disad-
vantage, that he was obliged to shut himself
up every day for a considerable time to paint
his face and make his toilette, in order to hide
the ravages which disease and debauchery
had made in his appearance. Maidalchini,
one night during the conclave, lost fifty dou
blooms as play to a kindred spirit, Cardinal
Medici, when Medici said he would let his
Eminenoe off if he would dress himself up
| and 60 and announce, as by vision, to poor
old lame Cardinal Caraffa, that he should be
pope. The joke seemed too good one not
to be put in practice, 80 Maidalchini wrapped
himself up in a white sheet, put on a false
beard and wig, pinned two sheets of paper on
to his shoulders for wings, borrowed pair
of green spectacles from Cardinal Triulzi, and
made for himself golden aureole, by the aid
of some gilt paper and saucepan, which he
put upon his head. After having completed
this disguise, he took two wax candles, one in
each hand, and got in by secret passage to
the side of Caraffa's bed. Poor old Caraffa
had the gout, and was not asleep when he
saw the phantom arrive; he understood the
pleasantly Immediately indeed, he
had been forewarned-so he seized his
crutch silently, and as soon as the spectre
was near enough, laid on Justify crying
OUT" "Incorrigible Joker, it is thou, is it ?
Take that, and that, and laugh again. -
Maidalchini did not wait longer than he
could help by Caraffa's bedside, but blew
out his candles and ran off, leaving the
door open, from which latter circumstance
the joke had more serious ending than
was anticipated for poor Caraffa was too
much troubled with gout to get up and
shut the door, and the draught gave the
gouty old man such cold that he died shortly
afterwards.
MaidalchinI, indeed, seems, according to
faithful report, to have provided the greatest
part of what fun there was going in three OF
four conclaves. During this conclave, he,
with some others, gummed together the pages
of the breviary of Cardinal Lugo, who, how
ever, was not sorry for an excuse to get rid
of the trouble of reading it. He put, too, some
powder made from the euphorbium plant in
the missal of Cardinal Filomarini, just before
he had to say high mass for the conclave; and
Filomarini was seized with such a fit of
Sneezing that he had to stop short in the
middle of service and could not 90 on
1t was not in this, but in another con-
clave that Maidalchini had furious dis
pute with Cardinal Colonna, in which they
nearly came to blows. Colonna went to
visit Maidalchni in his cell. Maidalchini,
who thought Colonna bore, had told his
servant always to say he was asleep, that
is, "not at home" for Colonna 1t hap
pened at this tune, when Oolonns called, that