The Court of Rome was divided at the time into two parties;—the Zelanti, who laboured to maintain all the privileges of the Church in their integrity and full extent; and the Regalisti, or the adherents of the crowns, who considered that the welfare of the Church must be sought in wise conciliation. Thirteen days after Clement’s demise, the Conclave assembled, and the Zelanti, notwithstanding D’Aubeterre’s insinuations and menaces, attempted to elect a Pope before the arrival of the French and Spanish cardinals. They nearly succeeded in their attempt. Cardinal Ghigi, one of them, having missed his nomination only by two votes. Then the struggle for the nomination began again more seriously. Choiseul, and still more than he, Charles III., being determined on the abolition of the Jesuits, were resolved not to give their assent to the election of a Pope, unless they should have a good assurance that he would abolish the Society. The French and Spanish ambassadors in Rome, and above all, the French and Spanish cardinals, were ordered to endeavour to effect this result. But the person to whom was assigned, by the Bourbons, the most prominent part in the Conclave, was Cardinal de Bernis. Bernis was a man endowed with many noble qualities, but vain, ostentatious, and devoured above all with the desire of playing a conspicuous part. He had been first minister of Louis XV., had been supplanted by his protégé Choiseul, who sent him back to his Bishopric of Alby, and who now intrusted to him the delicate mission of choosing a successor to St Peter. We say _choosing_, because, to flatter his vanity, Choiseul told him that such would certainly be his mission, and the cardinal entered the Conclave fully convinced that on him alone rested the choice of the future pontiff. He was confident that the authority of the monarchs of the house of Bourbon, and his own pleasing and insinuating manner, would be irresistible. “His affability,” says St Priest, “which was a little theatrical, but always winning, seemed to transport the Court of Louis XV. into the midst of the gloomy apartments of the Vatican.” On entering the Conclave, Bernis, in the most courteous and modest manner, and without shewing any pretension of a desire to exercise any empire over the holy College, said to his colleagues, “France has only the desire of seeing raised to the papal throne a wise and temperate prince, who may entertain the respect due to the great powers. The choice of the Sacred College can only rest upon virtue, since it shines forth in each one of its members. But virtue alone is not sufficient. Who could surpass Clement XIII. in religion and purity of doctrine? His intentions were excellent; nevertheless, during his reign, the Church was disturbed and shaken to its centre. Let your eminences restore concord between the Holy See and the Catholic States, and bring back peace to Christendom, and France will be content.”[360] As an inducement to the cardinals to comply