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The cardinals assembled in the Chapel of St Nicholas where, upon the altar, was the
golden cup into which they were to place their slips of paper. The cup was guarded by
three cardinals, one of them d'Estouteville who was trembling with excitement. Into the
cup, in order of seniority, the cardinals dropped their votes, and when all had done so
the cup was emptied. The papers were unfolded and the names read out. D'Estouteville
then declared the result. But the Bishop of Siena, who had been prudently making notes
of the names as they had been announced, objected that his rival had miscounted the
number of votes cast for him. And so he had. But even so the Bishop of Siena had not
acquired the sufficient majority; and it was decided that the Sacred College would have
to resort to the method known as per accessum by which, during discussion, it could be
discovered whether or not any of the voters might be prepared to transfer their support
to another candidate for the sake of agreement.
‘All sat in their places, silent, pale, as though they had been struck senseless,’ recalled
the Bishop of Siena in his account of the final stages of the conclave. ‘