admitted to this privilege.[2] By the Closing of the Grand Council, as the ordinances of this crisis were termed, the administration of Venice was vested for perpetuity in the hands of a few great houses.  The final completion was given to the oligarchy in 1311 by the establishment of the celebrated Council of Ten,[3] who exercised a supervision over all the magistracies, constituted the Supreme Court of judicature, and ended by controlling the whole foreign and internal policy of Venice.  The changes which I have thus briefly indicated are not to be regarded as violent alterations in the constitution, but rather as successive steps in its development.  Even the Council of Ten, which seems at first sight the most tyrannous state-engine ever devised for the enslavement of a nation, was in reality a natural climax to the evolution which had been consistently advancing since the year 1172.  Created originally during the troublous times which succeeded the closing of the Grand Council, for the express purpose of curbing unruly nobles and preventing the emergence of conspirators like Tiepolo, the Council of Ten were specially designed to act as a check upon the several orders in the state and to preserve its oligarchical character inviolate.  They were elected by the Consiglio Grande, and at the expiration of their office were liable to render strict account of all that they had done.  Nor was this magistracy coveted by the Venetian nobles.  On the contrary, so burdensome were its duties, and so great was the odium which from time to time the Ten incurred in the discharge of their functions, that it was not always found easy to fill up their vacancies.  A law had even to be passed that the Ten had not completed their magistracy before their successors were appointed.[4] They may therefore be regarded as a select committee of the citizens, who voluntarily delegated dictatorial powers to this small body in order to maintain their own ascendency, to centralize the conduct of important affairs, to preserve secrecy in the administration of the republic, and to avoid the criticism to which the more public government of states like Florence was exposed.[5] The weakness of this portion of the state machinery was this:  created with ill-defined and almost unlimited authority,[6] designed to supersede the other public functionaries on occasions of great moment, and composed of men whose ability placed them in the very first rank of citizens, the Ten could scarcely fail, as time advanced, to become a permanently oppressive power—­a despotism within the bosom of an oligarchy.  Thus in the whole mechanism of the state of Venice we trace the action of a permanent aristocracy tolerating, with a view to its own supremacy, an amount of magisterial control which in certain cases, like that of the two Foscari, amounted to the sternest tyranny.  By submitting to the Council of Ten the nobility of Venice secured its hold upon the people and preserved unity in its policy.