The General was chosen for life from the professed of four vows by the General Congregation, which consisted of the provincials and two members of each province.  He held the whole Society at his discretion; for he could deal at pleasure with each part of its machinery.  The constitutions, strict as they appeared, imposed no barriers upon his will; for almost unlimited power was surrendered to him of dispensing with formalities, freeing from obligations, shortening or lengthening the periods of initiation, retarding or advancing a member in his career.  Ideal fixity of type, qualified by the utmost elasticity in practice, formed the essence of the system.  And we shall see that this principle pervaded the Jesuit treatment of morality.  The General resided at Rome, consecrated solely to the government of the Society, holding the threads of all its complicated affairs in his hands, studying the personal history of each of its members in the minute reports which he constantly received from every province, and acting precisely as he chose with the highest as well as the lowest of his subordinates.  Contrary to all precedents of previous religious orders, Ignatius framed the Company of Jesus upon the lines of a close aristocracy with autocratic authority confided to an elected chief.  Yet the General of the Jesuits, like the Doge of Venice, had his hands tied by subtly powerful though almost invisible fetters.  He was subjected at every hour of the day and night to the surveillance of five sworn spies, especially appointed to prevent him from altering the type or neglecting the concerns of the Order.  The first of these functionaries, named the Administrator, who was frequently also the confessor of the General, exhorted him to obedience, and reminded him that he must do all things for the glory of God.  Obedience and the glory of God, in Jesuit phraseology, meant the maintenance of the Company.  The other four were styled Assistants.  They had under their charge the affairs of the chief provinces; one overseeing the Indies, another Portugal and Spain, a third France and Germany, a fourth Italy and Sicily.  Together with the Administrator, the Assistants were nominated by the General Congregation and could not be removed or replaced without its sanction.  It was their duty to regulate the daily life of the General, to control his private expenditure on the scale which they determined, to prescribe what he should eat and drink, and to appoint his hours for sleep, and religious exercises, and the transaction of public business.  If they saw grave reasons for his deposition, they were bound to convene the General Congregation for that purpose.  And since the Founder knew that guardians need to be guarded, he provided that the Provincials might convene this assembly to call in question the acts of the Assistants.  The General himself had no power to oppose its convocation.