died and was washed, because there were
no others. His canonical vestments were put upon him without any shirt,
and a pair of red cloth stockings, furnished by the bishop of Cervia,
who was his chamberlain, and a long tunic, if I remember rightly, of red
damask, as well as some other things." This pope, whose body was thus
washed with his shirt torn in half for want of a towel, was that same
Sixtus the enormous wealth and boundless luxury of whose nephews seem
almost fabulous to readers even of these money-abounding days.

The explanation of the extraordinary state of things above described is
to be found in the custom which existed of sacking the apartments of the
deceased pope as soon as ever the breath was out of his body. The utter
lawlessness which prevailed at Rome _sede vacante_--that is to say,
during the interval between the death of one pope and the election of
his successor--was not, indeed, confined to the residence of the
departed pontiff. Throughout Rome all law used to be on those occasions
in abeyance. The streets were scenes of the most unbridled excesses and
violence of all sorts. That was the time for the satisfying of old
grudges. Murder was as common as murderous hate; and no man's life was
safe save in so far as his own hand or his own walls could protect it.
And walls did not always avail. I find a petition to Leo X. from a
monastery in Rome, setting forth that a document assuring certain
indulgences to the house had been lost at the time of the sack and
plunder of the convent during the last conclave. No sort of claim, it is
to be observed, is attempted to be set up of redress for the plunder and
destruction of the property of the convent; only a prayer that the
privileges in question might be again granted in consideration of the
loss of the document. A very curious illustration of Roman manners in
the sixteenth century is to be found in a practice with regard to these
periods of interregnum which I find recorded by Cancellieri in his work
on the conclaves. Roman wives, it seems, were forbidden--not without
reason--to leave their homes and go forth into the streets of Rome at
their pleasure. But in the articles of the marriage contract it was
stipulated that the lady should be free to go out on certain specified
occasions, mainly ecclesiastical festivals; and among these it was
always specially provided that the lady might go out during the days of
the exposition of the body of a deceased pope fo