The Secretary of Embassy was also named by the Senate, and though the attachés might be chosen by the ambassador, his choice had to be confirmed by the government. He was not allowed to take his wife with him, as her presence might have distracted him from business, and also because it might possibly have been a little prejudicial to the keeping of secrets; but he was allowed to take his cook. These same instructions appear as early as the thirteenth century. Modern diplomatists, and especially Americans, will be interested to know that the post of ambassador was so little desired as to make it necessary to impose a heavy fine on any noble who refused it when he was appointed; and it actually happened more than once that men paid the fine rather than ruin themselves altogether in the service of their sordid government. Once having left Venice, however, no resignation was allowed, and the ambassador dared not return unless he was ordered to do so. Requests for leave were very rare, and were only made under the pressure of some very exceptional circumstances. Such a petition was considered so serious a matter that when one arrived from abroad all persons related to the ambassador were ordered to leave the Senate, lest their presence should interfere with the freedom of discussion; but the request was never granted unless two members of the family would swear that the reasons alleged in the petition were genuine. Legend assures us that each ambassador received, together with his credentials, a box full of gold coin and a small bottle of deadly poison. This is childish nonsense, of course, so far as the portable realities were concerned, but ambassadors were instructed to hesitate at nothing which could accomplish the purpose of the State, neither at spending large sums which would be placed at their disposal when necessary, nor at what the Senate was good enough to call measures of exceptional severity--namely, murder. The most important post in Venetian diplomacy was the embassy at Constantinople, where the chief of the mission enjoyed the title of Bailo, together with the chance of making a fortune instead of losing one. The Bailo of Constantinople and the ambassador to the Pope took precedence over all other Venetian diplomatists, and they were expected to make an even greater display, especially at the pontifical court. The four ambassadors sent to congratulate Sixtus V. on his election had each four noble attachés, four armed footmen, and five-and-twenty horses, and the one of the four who was already the resident in Rome was indemnified for his expenses in order that he might appear as magnificently as his three newly arrived colleagues.