At five o'clock on the 31st of July the Cardinals, sixty-three in all, assembled at the Vatican. At nightfall the last door was closed and bricked up; the conclave had begun. At the first scrutiny Cardinal Rampolla had twenty-four votes, Cardinal Gotti seven, and Cardinal Sarto five. There was nothing alarming in this; but when, at the second scrutiny, the votes in favour of the Patriarch of Venice had doubled, and at the third doubled again, it was another matter, and his anguish was obvious to all. With trembling voice and tears in his eyes, he spoke to the Cardinals, begging them to give up all thought of him. "I am unworthy, I am not qualified," he pleaded, "forget me." "It was that very adjuration, his grief, his profound humility and wisdom," said Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, "that made us think of him all the more; we learnt to know him from his words as we could never have known him by hearsay." The voting continued. In the evening of the second day Cardinal Sarto, who at the last scrutiny had obtained twenty-four votes, on returning to his room found several of his colleagues who had come to beg him not to refuse the burden if God should call upon him to bear it. "I was one of those who went to visit him in his cell in the evening, to try to induce him to accept," said the American cardinal. "Those who had gone before had shaken his resistance, so that I almost hoped he would resign himself to what seemed to be inevitable." On the third day the votes for Cardinal Sarto went on increasing, until on the morning of the fourth day fifty out of the sixty-two were in his favour, eight more than the forty-two required for a valid election. They asked him if he would accept, but he had already accepted in his heart after a most grievous inward struggle. "I accept," he said, with tears. "What name will you take?" they asked him. "I will be called Pius," he replied. Pale and trembling, he was clothed in the white cassock, the ring was placed on his finger, and he was led to the throne to receive the obedience of the cardinals. When at last the pope returned to his cell he remained for long in prayer before the crucifix. The faithful servant who had come with him from Venice begged him several times in vain to take some food. At last he rose, and, turning to his secretary, Monsignor Bressan, with something of his old serenity: "Come," he said, "it is the will of God."