It will be easily seen that the moment of proceeding to the accessit is the time for fine strokes of policy, for the most cautious prudence and craftiest cunning.  The general condition of the ground has been disclosed by the results of the previous scrutiny.  The possibilities and chances begin to discover themselves.  “Frequently,” says the President de Brosses, who was at Rome during the conclave which elected Benedict XIV. in 1740, in the charming published volume of his letters—­“Frequently at the accessit everything which was done at the preceding ceremony is reversed; and it is at the accessit that the most subtle strokes of policy are practiced.  Sometimes, for example, when a party has been formed for any cardinal, the leader of the party keeps in reserve for the accessit all the votes that he can count on as certain, and induces those that he suspects may be doubtful to vote for the person intended to be made pope at the first scrutiny, so as to make sure by the number of votes given whether his supporters have been true to their party, and to avoid unmasking his policy till he shall be sure of his coup.”

The story of the conclave which elected Cardinal Lambertini pope as Benedict XIV., gives a curious picture of the schemes and intrigues carried on in the mysterious seclusion of the conclave.  Clement XII., of the Florentine Corsini family, had died.  The cardinal Corsini, his nephew, was at the head of one faction in the conclave, and the cardinal Albani, nephew of Clement XI., who died in 1721, at the head of the other.  The former party seemed at the beginning of the conclave to be the most numerous.  But De Brosses describes the two men as follows.  Corsini, he says, had little intelligence, less sense, and no capacity for affairs.  Of Albani, he says that he was “highly considered for his capacity, and both hated and feared to excess—­a man without faith, without principles; an implacable enemy even when appearing to be reconciled; of a great genius for affairs; inexhaustible in resource and intrigue; the ablest man in the college, and the worst-hearted man in Rome.”  It soon became clear that the struggle between the factions thus led would be severe, and the conclave a long one.  The history of the plots and counterplots by which each strove to circumvent the other is extremely amusing, but too long to be given here.  After various fruitless attempts, the Corsini faction concentrated all their forces on Cardinal Aldrovandi.  He was a man of decent character, and had the support of a small body of independent cardinals, called the “Zelanti,” who, to the great disgust and contempt of their brethren in purple, were mainly influenced by the consideration of the worthiness of his character.  The number of voices needed to make the election was thirty-four:  Aldrovandi had thirty-three.  Cardinal Passionei, the scrutator who had to declare the votes, and a member of the opposite faction, became, we are told, as pale as death when he announced with trembling