To be chosen the infallible head of Christ's church, to hold the power of the keys, and be Heaven's vicegerent on earth, he of all the Christians on it!—how was he to cause such a choice to fall on him?—how appear to be the best, the most devout, the wisest, the most learned, or even the ablest man for the purpose? Donna Olympia knew better than to suppose that it was necessary or even desirable to appear anything of all this. She knew that there would be candidates in the conclave relying on none of such good gifts, but solely on the backing of the great powers of Europe. She knew that her candidate would not be looked to by either of these pope–making monarchs. But she knew also, that their influence might neutralise the power of each other, and that in such a case some man, who was obnoxious to no party, feared by none, and deemed a safe compromise by all, might have a very promising chance of finding himself elected, as many a Pope has been on the _pis–aller_ principle. [Sidenote: ELECTION OF INNOCENT X.] This was the game which the shrewd Olympia played and won. When the great Barberini Pope, Urban VIII., died, after a long papacy of twenty–one years, neither of the great parties in Europe, as represented by their friends and creatures among the Cardinals, was strong enough to make its own Pope in spite of the determined opposition of its opponent. The Conclave was at a dead lock. And at last a compromise was found in the election of Innocent X., then seventy, or all but seventy years old. The real acting Pope, Olympia, was just fifty. There were eleven years of harvest–time before her for the gathering in of the crop, which she had spent her life in assiduously preparing. The time might easily have been less, and she could scarcely have expected that it should be more; for the new Pope was already an infirm man, and Olympia lost no time in making her hay while the Roman sun shone.