To this point the political
economy of the Venetian Republic, however faulty, had at least some
merit for simplicity and frankness. The ostensible agents of the
administration were known, and though all real responsibility to the
nation was lost in the superior influence and narrow policy of the
patricians, the rulers could not entirely escape from the odium that
public opinion might attach to their unjust or illegal proceedings. But
a state whose prosperity was chiefly founded on the contribution and
support of dependants, and whose existence was equally menaced by its
own false principles, and by the growth of other and neighboring
powers, had need of a still more efficient body in the absence of that
executive which its own Republican pretensions denied to Venice. A
political inquisition, which came in time to be one of the most fearful
engines of police ever known, was the consequence. An authority as
irresponsible as it was absolute, was periodically confided to another
and still smaller body, which met and exercised its despotic and secret
functions under the name of the Council of Three. The choice of these
temporary rulers was decided by lot, and in a manner that prevented the
result from being known to any but to their own number and to a few of
the most confidential of the more permanent officers of the government.
Thus there existed at all times in the heart of Venice a mysterious and
despotic power that was wielded by men who moved in society unknown, and
apparently surrounded by all the ordinary charities of life; but which,
in truth, was influenced by a set of political maxims that were perhaps
as ruthless, as tyrannic, and as selfish, as ever were invented by the
evil ingenuity of man.
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