The older of the fathers who obeyed the summons to a new election, and converged upon the Eternal City, must have wondered whether it would pass without a fresh exhibition of the very human passions which the occasion so frequently revealed amongst them. Father Oliver Manares had been appointed Vicar-General, and had announced the election for the spring of 1581. We remember Manares as the fortunate discoverer of Huguenot plots at Paris, and then as successfully ousting Father Palmio from the position of chief assistant to Mercurian. He had made his way to the steps of the throne, and the more religious brethren were now startled to find him shamelessly canvassing for votes, in spite of the stern prohibition in their Constitutions. Four of the older fathers were at once appointed to investigate the charge against him. Bobadilla, impetuous and masterful still in his old age, was one of the four, but he expressed his resentment of the charge against his friend so strongly before the inquiry opened that they had, with great difficulty, to remove him from the commission; and, when the commissioners found Manares guilty, he made very sore trouble in the house. In the end Manares was persuaded to forego his right of nomination, and Father Acquaviva was elected. Claude Acquaviva was one of the youngest of the electors. Though strenuous work had already begun to whiten his dark southern hair, he was only thirty-seven years old; but he was distinguished for his high birth, his great ability, his integrity, and a happy combination of resolution and cold equanimity that recalled Lainez. He was a son of the Neapolitan Duke of Atri, and was destined to rule the Society during thirty-four years of that dangerous period when its desire for wealth and power, in the service of God, led it into the dark ways of political intrigue and the accumulation of earthly treasure. We shall now find the seeds of decay spreading over larger areas and germinating rapidly. We shall witness a singular eruption of the worldly spirit in the Spanish peninsula, and the development of the political Jesuit as he is known in the history of England, which I reserve for a special chapter, and of France.