the freedom of the election was secured. This privilege, granted to the three leading Catholic governments, was termed the " exclusiva." But even this concession does not constitute a formal right to be maintained against the Church, or to which she would consider herself bound to yield unconditionally, through a sense of moral obligation. It is nothing more than a grant, or concession, grounded on motives of prudence. If a Pope chose to abolish this veto, it would cease; and if a Pope were elected over the veto, he would still be Pope. But this will hardly happen; for at Rome such privileges are held sacred, even though there is no strict obligation to regard them.

The formalities and ceremonies connected with the Papal election are the work of a thousand years. It would exceed the limits of our space, to give a full account of the origin, the changes, and the development of these formalities. We must content ourselves in this, as in other portions of our task, with merely stating in general terms the principles on which the election is based. In this respect it will suffice to explain how the choice is made according to laws in vigor at the present time.

The nature of the subject suggests its division into three parts:—

The first part includes the preliminary steps, until the cardinals enter into conclave.

CHAPTER VII.

POPE LEO'S CORONATION.

ARDINAL PECCI was elected Pope on the

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20th of February, 1878; and the date of his coronation was fixed for the 3d of the following month. His Holiness spent the intervening time, as much as he possibly could, in prayer and retirement, in order to prepare himself for the great event of his life. All audiences were suspended, and the Pope claimed for himself the privilege of spending the brief time allotted him in silence and meditation. The coronation was naturally to take place in the grand Basilica of St. Peter; but certain circumstances determined Leo XIII. to have it elsewhere, and accordingly the Sistine Chapel was selected for the ceremony. The change of location, however, detracted nothing from the pomp and magnificence of the coronation, which was carried out with all that solemnity with which the Catholic Church invests an event of such great importance.

On the morning of the 3d, the Pope, surrounded by all the cardinals and accompanied by the entire

pontifical court, quitted his apartments, entered the sedes gestatoria, and followed by a numerous cortége of Swiss Guards, Noble Guards, and Roman nobility, proceeded to the Hall of Tapestries, where he was vested by the first two cardinal deacons, who placed on his head a golden mitre. These preliminaries over, preceded by the penitentiaries of the Vatican Basilica and a numerous body of other ecclesiastical dignities, he went to the Ducal Hall, which had been fitted up as a chapel. After a brief prayer, he took his seat on the throne at the gospel side of the altar; and to him in order then came the cardinals, who tendered him their obedience. Singly they approached the throne, and, kissing the right hand of the Pope, retired. Then came the archbishops and bishops, who kissed his foot; and then, chanting the apostolic benediction, the Holy Father intoned the office of tierce, which the pontifical choir continued to its completion. Afterwards the Sovereign Pontiff was robed in the pontifical vestments, the ring was placed on his finger, and the route of the procession was again taken up; the Pope, as before, being borne in the sedes gestatoria, covered with a canopy of gold, and supported by eight dignitaries. Into the Sistine Chapel, where a throne was raised on a marble daïs on the gospel side of the altar, the procession moved; but as it was on the point of starting, an official brought the Pope a handful

of flax attached to a gilded rod, which was lit in his

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presence and consumed, while a clerk said in Latin, 'Holy Father, thus passes away the glory of the world," to remind him, that notwithstanding his high position, and the honors which were being paid him, death was in store for him as for the rest of mortals, and the accounting after death would be all the more rigorous for him who had received such signal favors from Heaven.

To attempt any description of the scenes in the Sistine Chapel during the Papal coronation, would be idle. One has to see that sight with his own eyes, to realize its magnificence. The cardinals in their rich attire; the archbishops and bishops in the showy copes and mitres; the various garbs of the clergy, regular and secular; the gleaming helmets and jewels of the Papal Guard; the long rows of ambassadors, nobles, and other lay dignitaries; the immense concourse of the people, filling every available space; the grand ceremonies, the resonant music, and the seraphic singing of unseen choirs, - all those things form a picture which it would be useless to attempt to describe in words. The Pope, arriving before the grand altar, descended from the sedile chair, and began the introit of the Mass; during which the pallium, indicative of the fulness of the Papal office, was given him, and immediately he received the obedience of all the cardinals, archbishops, and bishops who were

present. At the conclusion of the Mass, he again ascended the throne; and, after the prescribed prayers had been said, the tiara, or triple crown, was placed upon his head. The choirs saluted him with joyful acclamations; and rising, with the tiara on his brow, he pronounced the triple benediction, announced the accorded indulgences, and entering the chair, still wearing the triple crown, was borne back to the Hall of Tapestries to be disrobed. There the following address was read to him by Cardinal di Pietro, on behalf of the College of Cardinals: —

"Most Holy Father, since our votes, inspired by God, have caused the selection for the great dignity of Sovereign Pontiff of the Catholic Church to fall upon your Holiness, we have passed from profound affliction to a lively hope. To the tears which we shed upon the tomb of Pius IX., a Pope so greatly venerated throughout the whole world, and so beloved by us, succeeds the consoling thought, that there arises rapidly a new dawn with wellfounded hopes for the Church of Jesus Christ.

"Yes, Most Holy Father, you gave sufficient proofs of your piety, of your apostolic zeal, of your many virtues, of your high intelligence, of your prudence, and of the deep interest you took in the glory and the majesty of our Sacred College, when you ruled the diocese intrusted to you by Divine Providence, or took part in the grave affairs of the Holy See; so that we can easily persuade ourselves, that, being elected Sovereign Pontiff, you will do as the apostle wrote of himself to the Thessalonians: For our gospel hath not been to you in word only, but in power also, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much fulness.

"Nor, indeed, was the Divine Will slow to manifest itself, — that