He served as secretary of the conclave of 1903 that elected Pope Pius X. By a coincidence, the secretary of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation, who was also the secretary of the College of Cardinals and therefore of the conclave, had died almost at the same time as Leo XIII. In haste, the cardinals chose as his successor Archbishop Merry del Val, who had been ordained a bishop only three years before. The choice had been made from a pool of three names. The two rejected candidates were the substitute for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State, Giacomo Della Chiesa, and Pietro Gasparri, then serving as the secretary for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs. The preference shown to the youngest and least experienced of the three was interpreted as the first defeat of the Rampolla coalition, and a foreshadowing of what would happen at the conclave.