One of the most remarkable features in the Venetian constitution is the infinite subdivision of government, and the number of offices to be filled. Nobles alone were eligible for the majority of these offices, and if we consider how small a body the Great Council really was, it is clear that the larger number of Venetian noblemen must have been employed in the service of the State at some time in their lives. The great political and administrative activity which reigned inside the comparatively small body that formed the ruling caste, as compared with the absolute stagnation and quiet which marked the life of the ordinary citizen, is one of the most noteworthy points in the history of Venice. Every noble above the age of twenty-five was a member of the Maggior Consiglio; every week that council had to fill up some office of State, had some new candidate before it. The tenure of all offices, except the Dukedom and the Procuratorship of St. Mark, was so brief, rarely exceeding a year, or sixteen months, that the fret and activity of elections must have been nearly incessant. This constant unrest bore its fruit in perpetual intrigues, and the censors were appointed to check the rampant canvassing and bribery. But the main point which is impressed upon us is the universality of political training to which all the nobles of Venice were subjected. No matter how frivolous a young patrician might be, he would be obliged to sit in the Great Council; he would be called upon to assist in electing the Ten, whose omniscience and severity he had every reason to dread; he might even find himself named to fill some minor post. It was impossible, under these circumstances, that he should fail to be educated politically, or that he should ever lose the keenest interest in every movement of the State. It is to this political activity that we may possibly look for one of the reasons which conduced to that extraordinary longevity which the constitution of Venice displayed.