Hadrian the Seventh

by Frederick Rolfe

  And, as for proceeding in a scientific manner, whether by means of the liberal or the so-called occult arts, to what on the whole is the essence of their business, viz. the collection of news, why Sir Notyet Apeer’s young men, or Sir Uriah Tepeddle’s criminal-investigators, or the “yearnest” exoletes who fill the Daily Anagraph with food for literary lionlets and Roman Catholic clergy and nonconforming philanthropists, have no such adequate ideal of their branch of literature. Their aim is to please editors or proprietors; and, so, to earn an as-near-as-may-be-legally honest living. No more.

  Consequently, when (during March and April) a score or so of these good gentlemen found themselves in Rome, with the doors of the Conclave bricked-up in their faces, the windows boarded and canvas-covered, and even the chimneys (with one exception) capped, they knew no better than to curse quite quietly all to themselves, to say that nothing was happening because they could not see what was happening, and to write dicaculous descriptions of the crowd, and the seven puffs of smoke (which on seven separate occasions distracted the said crowd), in the square of St. Peter’s.

  For, if there be one place in all this orb of earth, where a secret is a Secret, that place is a Roman Conclave. It is due to the superlative incompetency of the spies. Ignorant of their subject, they cannot seize its saliencies: they cannot move a hair’s breadth out of their conventional groove, notwithstanding that common sense should teach them the imperative necessity for applying unconventional methods to unconventional cases. When once we have emerged from the banal blinding stifling paralysing obfuscation of the nineteenth century, (and that should be in about ten years’ time,) it will be obligatory for “Our Special Correspondent” to add two things to his professional apparatus. The first is the power of mind-projection, as well as that other power of will-projection which, already, up-to-date practical common-sense men-of-the-world like the Jesuits use to such advantage. The second is a round matter, of about two-pounds-ten-ounces’ avoirdupois weight including its black-velvet wrapper, which costs forty-two pounds-sterling at the mineralogists’ in Regent Street.

  CHAPTER II

  Well: this is what was happening in the Roman Conclave.

  Cursors had shouted “Extra omnes”: fifty-seven cardinals and three-hundred-and-eleven conclavists had been immured in three galleries of the Vatican. All the ceremonies ordained in 1274 at the Council of Lyons by the Bull of Gregory X. had been observed.

  The Sacred College was divided into factions. There were five candidates for the paparchy:—Orezzo, Serafino-Vagellaio, cardinal-bishops: Ragna, Gentilotto, Fiamma, cardinal-presbyters. Then came groups representing divers nationalities. The French were Desbiens, Coucheur, Lanifère, Goëland, Perron, Mateur, Légat, Labeur, cardinal-presbyters; and Vaghemestre, cardinal-deacon. The Germans were Rugscha, Zarvasy, Popk, Niazk, cardinal-presbyters. The Spaniards were Nascha, Sañasca, Harrera, cardinal-presbyters. The Erse were O’Dromgoole, O’Tuohy, cardinal-presbyters. The Italians were Moccolo, Agnello, Vincenzo-Vagellaio, cardinal-bishops: Sarda, Ferraio, Saviolli, Manco, Ferita, Creta, Anziano, Cassia, Portolano, Respiro, Riciso, Zafferano, Mantenuti, Gennaio, Bosso, Conella, del Drudo, di Petra, di Bonti, cardinal-presbyters: Macca, Sega, Pietratta, Pepato, della Volta, cardinal-deacons. The English and American cardinal-presbyters Courtleigh and Grace agreed to vote together: so did the Benedictine cardinal-presbyter Cacciatore, and the Capuchin and Jesuit cardinal-deacons Vivole and Berstein. The Portuguese cardinal-prior-presbyter Mundo, and the Bohemian cardinal-presbyter Nefski (who was carried in a litter) posed as independent voters. Cardinal-presbyter Capacitato was absent through the infirmities of age; and, as common report (to say nothing of common knowledge) credited him with the possession of the Evil Eye, Their Eminencies were thankful to think that the fingers, which they would need for inscribing their suffrages, need not be employed in making perpetual horns.

  Once walled-up, and the conclavists having been satisfied about their comical constitutional privileges, the cardinals spent the evening in visiting one another in their cells, in discussing the prospects of the five candidates, in canvassing for and promising suffrages. The five themselves were divided into two parties which Ferraio, who was a bit of a wag, denominated in an abstruse jest the Snarlers and the Mewers. A Roman tradition alleges that the letter R (the litera canina) exercises an indefinable influence over an election, in that it occurs in the family names of alternate pontiffs. Others declared this tradition to be grounded upon no more sure warranty than old wives’ fables (anicularum lucubrationes), Serafino-Vagellaio, Gentilotto, Fiamma, gave expression to that theory. Circumlocution aside, there was little to choose between the five. Luigi Orezzo was Cardinal-Bishop, Dean of the Sacred College, Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church. Mariano Ragna was Secretary of State. Serafino-Vagellaio had been the favourite of a pontiff who had had all the world from which to choose. Hieronimo Gentilotto, nicknamed “The Red Pope” because he was Prefect of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, only had the Successor of the Fisherman as his superior. Domenico Fiamma, Archbishop of Bologna, was in the prime of vigorous life and famous for his brilliant intellect and noble mind.

  A cardinal is prohibited from voting for himself. Orezzo promised his suffrage to Ragna: Ragna, his to Orezzo: Snarlers should snarl at each other. Serafino-Vagellaio also promised his suffrage to Ragna, having the idea that an official is worthy of observance. But Gentilotto supported Fiamma: and Fiamma, Gentilotto.

  Morning saw mass and communion in the Pauline Chapel, and Their Eminencies proceeding to their thrones in the Xystine Chapel. A long silence came to pass. Fat wax tapers glimmered on the altar, on the screen, on the desk before each throne. So the cardinals waited, smoothing violet robes and the white uncovered rochets which indicated that supreme spiritual authority was devolved into their hands. No one was moved to speak. Election was not to be accomplished by the Way of Inspiration.

  Masters-of-ceremonies placed, on the table before the altar, two silver basons containing little paper billets. The names of the fifty-seven cardinals were written each on a little snip of parchment. The snips, rolled up, were tucked in holes in fifty-seven lead balls. The balls were dropped into a huge violet burse, one by one, counted by the electors. The burse was well-shaken; and Vaghemestre drew out three. The first bore the name Moccolo: the second, Popk: the third Harrera. Thus were elected the Cardinal-Scrutators.

  In turn, each cardinal provided himself with a blank billet from the silver basons: retired to his desk: and set about recording his suffrage. At the top of the billet, he wrote “I, Cardinal” and his name: folded it over: sealed it at each side. At the bottom he wrote his motto: folded it over: sealed it at each side. In the middle, he wrote “elect to the Supreme Pontificate the Most Reverend Lord my Lord Cardinal” and the name of the candidate to whom he gave his suffrage. Scratching of quills, splashing of scattered pounce, punctuated momentous silence. In obedience to the Bull of Gregory X., some made efforts to disguise their script. The results were hideous. Last, all folded their billets to about the breadth of an inch; and, in turn, each cardinal approached the altar, alone, holding his suffrage at arms’ length between the index and middle fingers of his right hand: bent his knee: rising, swore “I attest, before Christ, Who is to be my judge, that I choose him whom I think fittest to be chosen if it be according to God’s will.” A great gold chalice covered by a paten stood on the altar. Each cardinal laid his suffrage on the paten: tipped it until the suffrage slid into the chalice: replaced the paten; and returned to his throne.

  Cardinal-Scrutator Moccolo took the chalice by the foot: placed one hand on the paten: and shook, thoroughly to mix the suffrages. The Cardinal-Dean, the Cardinal-Prior-Priest, and the Cardinal-Archdeacon brought down the chalice to the table from which the billet-basons now had been removed. A ciborium stood there. The three Scrutators sat at one side of the table in face of the Sacred College. Harrera counted the suffrages, one by one, from the chalice into the ciborium. There w
ere fifty-seven. A grateful sigh went up. A hitch would have invalidated the scrutiny, giving Their Eminencies the pains of voting and sealing and swearing over again. Moccolo drew out one suffrage: unfolded it without violating the sealed ends: discovered the name of the candidate to whom the vote was given; and passed it to Popk, who also looked at the name; and passed it to Harrera, who read the name aloud.

  Each cardinal had on his desk a printed list of the Sacred College. The names ran down the middle of the sheets. To right and left were horizontal lines on which a tally of the votes was kept. As Harrera published the names, he filed each billet, piercing the word “elect” with a needle through which a skein of violet silk was threaded. When all were filed, he tied a knot in the silk; and laid the bunch of suffrages on the altar.

  The Way of Scrutiny at first produced the usual result. The fifty-seven suffrages were so evenly distributed among the five candidates that no one was elected. Orezzo had eight, viz. Ragna, Moccolo, Agnello, Manco, Sarda, Macca, Pepato, di Petra. Ragna had thirteen, viz. Orezzo, Serafino-Vagellaio, Cacciatore, Vivole, Berstein, Nascha, Sañasca, Harrera, Ferita, Pietratta, Bosso, Sega, Conella. Serafino-Vagellaio had eleven, viz. his brother Vincenzo, Rugscha, Zarvasy, Popk, Niazk, Gennaio, Cassia, Anziano, Portolano, Creta, di Bonti. Gentilotto had twelve, viz. Fiamma, Desbiens, Coucheur, Lanifère, Goëland, Mâteur, Légat, Perron, Labeur, Vaghemestre, Zafferano, Mantenuti. Fiamma had thirteen, viz. Gentilotto, Courtleigh, Grace, O’Dromgoole, O’Tuohy, Saviolli, della Volta, del Drudo, Respiro, Riciso, Nefski, Ferraio, Mundo. The Way of Access shewed that all still were of the same opinion; and that each expected the others to change theirs. A bundle of straw in the stove, the files of pierced suffrages laid thereon, and fire applied, produced the puff of smoke from the chimney in the Square of St. Peter’s which announced that the Lord God had sent no Pope to Rome that morning.

  The cardinals went to dine in their separate cells. After siesta and before prayers those who could walk took exercise in the galleries: others read the Daily Office with their chaplains. There was conversation, canvassing. In the evening, they sang Veni Creator and went to work again. Orezzo gained Anziano and Portolano, raising his total to ten. The nine French and the two Erse, with Ferita, Bosso, Pietratta, Sega, Conella, acceded to Ragna, raising his total to twenty-four. Serafino-Vagellaio kept but five supporters, viz. his brother and the four Germans. Gentilotto lost the nine French: but gained Gennaio, di Bonti, Cassia, Creta, bringing his total to seven. The defection of the two Erse reduced Fiamma’s adherents to eleven. And once more the puff of smoke emptied the Square of St. Peter’s.

  Private conferences occupied time: candles burned late into the night. Violet silk robes sussurated between violet serge curtains everywhere. There were colloquies, hints, exhortations, arguments, promises, promises dictated, suggested, given. Ragna took the opinion of his friends concerning a commodious pontifical name. Vivole offered him “Formosus the Second” and a pinch of Capuchin snuff out of the pages of his breviary: but Berstein preferred “Aloysius the First.” The Secretary of State would bear both in mind. Cohesion in clots began. The French, Germans, Spaniards, and Erse, already were united in four groups. What the leader of each group would do, the nine, the four, the three, and the two would do. By demonstrating that cardinal-deacons occasionally were raised to Titles, or Suburban sees, by Popes Whom they had elected, Cardinal-Archdeacon Macca collected a little diaconal fraction of four, himself, Pietratti, Sega, and Pepato. Ten Italians, viz. Conella, Manco, di Petra, Ferita, Creta, Cassia, Gennaio, di Bonti, Sarda, Bosso, agreed to vote together. Mundo refused to join the Spaniards; and Nefski, the Germans, on account of sundry events in Poland. Ferraio, Archbishop of Milan, would stick to Fiamma under all circumstances, because they both had been raised to the cardinalature together. Saviolli threw in his lot with the Keltic and American cardinals. Della Volta was in sympathy with Saviolli and his friends. Del Drudo delivered himself of the cryptic sentence that one who had been a major-domo ought to know a fresh egg from a stale one. And Cardinal-Vicar Respiro, and Riciso, Archbishop of Turin, agreed with del Drudo.

  So in the morning the third capitular assembly revealed an extraordinary state of affairs. Orezzo lost all his supporters but four, viz. Moccolo, Agnello, Anziano, Portolano. Serafino-Vagellaio lost all votes except his brother’s. Gentilotto lost all but three, viz. Fiamma, Zafferano, Mantenuti. Fiamma retained his loyal eleven. And Ragna began to score. First, he kept Orezzo and Serafino-Vagellaio, the Benedictine, the Capuchin, the Jesuit, and the three Spaniards. The nine French (for a wonder) remained constant to him for two consecutive days. So did the two Erse: indeed O’Tuohy, who as a student had vowed that he never would look a woman in the face, (and kept his vow,) was as persistent as he had been when Leo XIII. had tried to force him into the primacy of Eblana in the teeth of electors who rejected him. The four Germans, the four deacons, and the decade of Italians also joined Ragna, whose tally went in jumps (so to speak) from two, to five, and eight, and seventeen, and nineteen, and twenty-three, and twenty-seven, and thirty-seven——

  According to the Constitution of Alexander III., made at the Council of Lateran in the year of the Fructiferous Incarnation of the Son of God MCLXXX., and confirmed by subsequent Bulls of Gregory XV. and Urban VIII., the votes of two-thirds of the cardinals present at the Scrutiny are required for the election of a Pope. Not one of Their Eminencies was ignorant of the fact that two-thirds of fifty-seven is thirty-eight. Wherefore, when the tallies shewed thirty-seven votes for Ragna, and the Junior Scrutator stood up with just one more billet in his hand, some began stertorously to breathe through their noses: some went mauve and some magenta: while those of a phlegmatic habit of body reached for the cords of the canopies above their thrones, which descend at the manifestation of Christ’s Vicar.

  Harrera read the name “Ragna.”

  What happened next happened very quickly. The Scrutators broke the seals of the billets one by one; and Harrera read aloud the names of the electors as well as the name of the elected. At the thirteenth, he read, I, Cardinal Mariano Ragna, elect to the Supreme Pontificate the Most Reverend Lord my Lord Cardinal Mariano Ragna.

  This was a horrid example of the clever strong man, who loses control of his directive faculty, in the moment of excitement. No one could have done such a thing out of wilful wickedness: for the stringency of conclavial regulations effectually denies success to nefarious practices. Everyone knows that. The Secretary of State, by voting for himself just when he was on the verge of achieving the most tremendous of all ambitions, forfeited his own suffrage; and his election was nulled by defect of a single vote. What passions dilacerated his breast, God only knows. He shut-up himself in his cell during the rest of the day, horribly snarling. Orezzo, who injudiciously went to sympathize, suddenly came-away mouthing and tottering.

  The fourth Scrutiny began to shew how unpardonable a mistake is. Ragna’s ten Italians and four Germans fled to the faction of Fiamma. Ragna himself voted for Serafino-Vagellaio. The tally gave Orezzo four: Ragna, twenty-three: Serafino-Vagellaio, two: Gentilotto, three: Fiamma, twenty-five.

  In the fifth Scrutiny, desertions from Ragna continued. The French nine voted for Orezzo: the three Spaniards for Gentilotto. The tally gave Orezzo thirteen: Ragna eleven: Serafino-Vagellaio, two: Gentilotto, six: Fiamma, twenty-five.

  And now the French began to be flighty. In the sixth Scrutiny, they were seen to have dashed from Orezzo to Gentilotto, making the tally of Orezzo four: of Ragna, eleven: of Serafino-Vagellaio, two: of Gentilotto, fifteen: of Fiamma, twenty-five.

  Little suburban boys formerly used to satiate their emotions with a phrenetic and turbulent pastime called General Post. The seventh Scrutiny indicated a conclavial propensity for a verisimilar species of energetic dissipation. The four cardinal-deacons, evidently despairing of Ragna, left him. So did the two Erse cardinal-presbyters. The diaconate went over to Gentilotto, who lost the French to Serafino-Vagellaio. The Erse voted for the Cardinal-Chamberlain.
The seventh puff of smoke from the chimney in the Square of St. Peter’s was caused by the burning of fifty-seven suffrages allotted thus: Orezzo 6: Ragna 5: Serafino-Vagellaio 11: Gentilotto 10: Fiamma 25. Confabulations, to say naught of protocols, became the order of the day and night. No new candidate was forthcoming. The five candidates flatly refused to retire, or to alter the disposition of their suffrages. Moccolo, Agnello, Anziano, Portolano, refused to desert Orezzo. Zafferano and Mantenuti refused to abandon Gentilotto. Vincenzo-Vagellaio refused to be false to his brother. The Benedictine, the Capuchin, and the Jesuit, refused to forsake Ragna. Fiamma’s stalwart twenty-five excited disgust. Ringed and middle fingers were protruded at it. Although there was not a single clean-bred Englishman in its ranks, it was said to be getting “quite English”; and that is a very bitter taunt in the Vatican when the Quirinale is notoriously Anglophile. As for the Portugal Mundo, its leader—well, everyone knows that Portugal has been in the King of England’s pocket since the Lisbon extravaganza, said Sañasca. As for the Germans,—well, everybody knows that Prussians are just as bestially cynical as Jonbulls, said Coucheur. The Franco-Hispano-Erse faction was quite ready to go anywhere and vote for anybody who was not “English.” The deacons, on the contrary, remembered that England was very much the fashion; and began to have respect unto the twenty-five. But the Way of Scrutiny failed, and the Way of Access also failed, to produce a pontiff. Fiamma’s tally rose to twenty-nine by the accession of the diaconate. The Franco-Hispano-Erse alliance attached itself by fits and starts to Orezzo, to Ragna, to Serafino-Vagellaio, to Gentilotto: but the indispensable two-thirds of fifty-seven never was attained. And, after a week of errancy, Their Eminencies thought that the whole affair was rather tiresome.