2221 (return)
[ Duvergier, "Collection des Lois et Décrets." Laws of the 4-11 August, 1789; March 15-28, 1790; May 3-9, 1790; June 15-19, 1791.]

2222 (return)
[ Agrier percières—terms denoting taxes paid in the shape of shares of produce. Those which follow: lods, rentes, quint, requint belong to the taxes levied on real property. 22Tr.]

2223 (return)
[ Doniol ("Noveaux cahiers de 1790"). Complaints of the copy-holders of Rouergues and of Quercy, pp. 97-105.]

2224 (return)
[ See further on, book III. ch. II. § 4 and also ch. III.]

2225 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of March 2, 1790. Speech by Merlin: "The peasants have been made to believe that the annulation of the banalities (the obligation to use the public mill, wine-press, and oven, which belonged to the noble) carried along with it the loss to the noble of all these; the peasants regarding themselves as proprietors of them."]

2226 (return)
[ Moniteur; sitting of June 9, 1790. Speech of M. Charles de Lameth—Duvergier (laws of June 19-23 1790; September 27 and October 16, 1791).]

2227 (return)
[ Sauzay, V. 400—410.]

2228 (return)
[ Duvergier, laws of June 15-19, 1791; of June 18—July 6, 1792; of August 25-28, 1792.]

2229 (return)
[ "Institution du Droit Français," par Argou, I.103. (He wrote under the Regency.) "The origin of most of the feoffs is so ancient that, if the seigneurs were obliged to produce the titles of the original concession to obtain their rents, there would scarcely be one able to produce them. This deficiency is made up by common law."]

2230 (return)
[ Duvergier (laws of April 8-15, 1791; March 7-11; October 26, 1791; January 6-10, 1794).—Mirabeau had already proposed to reduce the disposable portion to one-tenth.]

2231 (return)
[ See farther on, book III, ch. III.]

2232 (return)
[ Mercure, September 10, 1791. Article by Mallet du Pan.—Ibid. October 15, 1791.]

2233 (return)
[ Should Hitler or Lenin have read and understood the consequences of these events they would have deduced that given the command from official sources or recognized leaders ordinary people all over the world could easily be tempted to attack any group, being it Jews, Protestants, Hindus or foreigners. (SR.)]

2234 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," II. 784. Letters of M. de Langeron, October 16 and 18, 1789.—Albert Babeau, "Histoire de Troyes," letters addressed to the Chevalier de Poterats, July, 1790.—"Archives Nationales," papers of the Committee on Reports, bundle 4, letter of M. le Belin-Chatellenot to the to the President of the National Assembly, July 1, 1791.—Mercure, October 15, 1791. Article by Mallet du Pan: "Such is literally the language of these emigrants; I do not add a word."—Ibid. May 15, 1790. Letter of the Baron de Bois d'Aizy, April 29,1790, demanding a decree of protection fur the nobles. "We shall know (then) whether we are outlawed or are of any account in the rights of man written out with so much blood, or whether, finally, no other option is left to us but that of carrying to distant skies the remains of our property and our wretched existence."]

2235 (return)
[ Mercure, October 15, 1791, and September 10, 1791. Read the admirable letter of the Chevalier de Mesgrigny, appointed colonel during the suspension of the King, and refusing his new rank.]

2236 (return)
[ Cf. the "Mémoires" of M. de Boustaquet, a Norman gentleman.]

2237 (return)
[ Cf. "The Ancient Régime," books I. and II.]

2238 (return)
[ Boivin—Champeaux, "Notice Historique sur la Révolution dans le Département de L'Eure," the register of grievances. In 1788, at Rouen, there was not a single profession made by men. In the monastery of the Deux-Amants the chapter convoked in 1789 consisted of two monks.—"Archives Nationales," papers of the ecclesiastic committee, passim.]

2239 (return)
[ "Apologie de l'État Religieux" (1775), with statistics. Since 1768 the decline is "frightful." "It is easy to foresee that in ten or twelve years most of the regular bodies will be absolutely extinct, or reduced to a state of feebleness akin to death."]

2240 (return)
[ Sanzay, I. 224 (November, 1790). At Besançon, out of 266 monks, "79 only showed any loyalty to their engagements or any affection for their calling." Others preferred to abandon it, especially all the Dominicans but five, all but one of the bare footed Carmelites, and all the Grand Carmelites. The same disposition is apparent throughout the department, as, for instance, with the Benedictines of Cluny except one, all the Minimes but three, all the Capuchins but five, the Bernandins, Dominicans, and Augustins, all preferring to leave.—Montalembert, "Les Moines d'Occident," introduction, pp. 105-164. Letter of a Benedictine of Saint-Germain-des-Prés to a Benedictine of Vannes. "Of all the members of your congregation which come here to lodge, I have scarcely found one capable of edifying us. You may probably say the same of those who came to you from our place."—Cf. in the "Mémoires" of Merlin de Thionville the description of the Chartreuse of Val St. Pierre.]

2241 (return)
[ Ch. Guerin, "Revue des Questions Historiques" (July 1, 1875; April 1, 1876).—Abbé Guettée, "Histoire de l'Eglise de France," XII, 128. ("Minutes of the meeting of l'Assemblée du Clergé," in 1780.)—"Archives nationales," official reports and memorandums of the States-General in 1789. The most obnoxious proceeding to the chiefs of the order is the postponement of the age at which vows may be taken, it being, in their view, the ruin of their institutions.—"The Ancient Régime," p. 403.]

2242 (return)
[ In order for a modern uninstructed non-believing reader to understand the motivation which moved thousands of self-less sisters and brothers to do their useful and kind work read St. Matthew chapter 25, verses 31 to 46 where Jesus predicts how he will sit in judgment on mankind and separate the sheep from the goats. (SR.)]

2243 (return)
[ "The Ancient Régime," P.33—Cf. Guerin "The monastery of the Trois-Rois, in the north of Franche-Comté, founded four villages collected from foreign colonists. It is the only center of charity and civilization in a radius of three leagues. It took care of two hundred of the sick in a recent epidemic; it lodges the troops which pass from Alsace into Franche-Comté, and in the late hailstorm it supplied the whole neighborhood with food."]

2244 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of February 13,1790. (Speech of the Abbé de Montesquiou).—Archives Nationales," papers of the Ecclesiastical Committee, DXIX. 6, Visitation de Limoges, DXIX. 25, Annonciades de Saint-Denis; ibid. Annonciades de Saint Amour, Ursulines d'Auch, de Beaulieu, d'Eymoutier, de la Ciotat, de Pont Saint-Esprit, Hospitalières d'Ernée, de Laval; Sainte Claire de Laval, de Marseilles, etc. "]

2245 (return)
[ Sauzay, I. 247. Out of three hundred and seventy-seven nuns at Doubs, three hundred and fifty-eight preferred to remain as they were, especially at Pontarlier, all the Bernardines, Annonciades, and Ursulines; at Besançon, all the Carmelites, the Visitandines, the Annonciades, the Clarisses, the Sisters of Refuge, the Nuns of the Saint-Esprit and, save one, all the Benedictine Nuns.]

2246 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales." Papers of the Ecclesiastical Committee, passim.—Suzay, I. 51.—Statistics of France for 1866.]

2247 (return)
[ In 1993 this number has once more fallen, and continues to fall, to 55 900. "Quid", 1996 page 623. (SR.)]

2248 (return)
[ Felix Rocquain, "La France aprés le 18 Brumaire." (Reports of the Councillors of State dispatched on this service, passim).]

2249 (return)
[ Moniteur, October 24, 1789. (Speech of Dupont de Nemours.) All these speeches, often more fully reported and with various renderings, may be found in "Les Archives Parlementaires," 1st series, vols. VIII. and IX.]

2250 (return)
[ Duvergier, decree of June 14-17, 1791. "The annihilation of every corporation of citizens of any one condition or profession being on of the foundation-stones of the French constitution, it is forbidden to re-establish these de-facto under any pretext or form whatever. Citizens of a like condition or profession, such as contractors, shopkeepers, workmen of all classes, and associates in any art whatever shall not, on assembling together, appoint either president, or secretaries, or syndics, discuss or pass resolutions, or frame any regulations in relation to their assumed common interests."]

2251 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of November 2nd, 1789.]

2252 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of February 12, 1790. Speeches of Dally d'Agier and Barnave.]

2253 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of August 10, 1789. Speech by Garat; February 12, 1790, speech by Pétion; October 30, 1789, speech by Thouret.]

2254 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of November 2, 1789. Speech by Chapelier; October 24, 1789, speech by Garat; October 30, 1789, speech by Mirabeau, and the sitting of August 10, 1789.]

2255 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of October 23, 1789. Speech by Thouret.]

2256 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of October 23, 1789. Speech by Treilhard; October 24th, speech by Garat; October 30, speech by Mirabeau.—On the 8th of August, 1789, Al. de Lameth says in the tribune: "When an foundation was set up, it is to the nation, which the grant was given."]

2257 (return)
[ Duvergier, laws of August 18, 1792; August 8-14, 1793; July 11, 1794; July 14, 1792; August 24, 1793.]

2258 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of July 31, 1792. Speech of M. Boistard; the property of the hospitals, at this time was estimated at eight hundred millions.—Already in 1791 (sitting of January 30th) M. de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt said to the Assembly: "Nothing will more readily restore confidence to the poor than to see the nation assuming the right of rendering them assistance." He proposes to decree; accordingly, that all hospitals and places of beneficence be placed under the control of the nation. (Mercure, February 12, 1791.)]

2259 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of August 10, 1789. Speech by Sieyès.—The figures given here are deduced from the statistics already given in the "Ancient Régime."]

2260 (return)
[ Moniteur, v. 571. sitting of September 4, 1790. Report of the Committee on Finances—V. 675, sitting of September 17, 1790. Report by Necker.]

2261 (return)
[ A Revolutionary Government promissory bank note. (SR.)]

2262 (return)
[ Sauzay, I. 228 (from October 10, 1790, to February 20, 1791). "The total weight of the spoil of the monastic establishments in gold, silver, and plated ware, sent to the Mint amounted to more than 525 kilograms (for the department)."]

2263 (return)
[ Duvergier, law of October 8-14.]

2264 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of June 3,1792. Speech of M. Bernard, in the name of the committee of Public Assistance: "Not a day passes in which we do not receive the saddest news from the departments on the penury of their hospitals."—Mercure de France, December 17, 1791, sitting of December 5. A number of deputies of the Department of the North demand aid for their hospitals and municipalities. Out of 480,000 livres revenue there remains 10,000 to them. "The property of the Communes is mortgaged, and no longer affords them any resources. 280,000 persons are without bread."]

2265 (return)
[ Sauzay, I. 252 (December 3, 1790. April 13, 1791).]

2266 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of June 1, 1790. Speeches by Camus, Treilhard, etc.]

2267 (return)
[ But on the assumption that all religion has been invented by human beings for their own comfort or use, then what would be more natural than clever rulers using their power to influence the religious authorities to their own advantage. (SR.)]

2268 (return)
[ Ultramontane: Extreme in favoring the Pope's supremacy. (SR.)]

2269 (return)
[ Sauzay, I. 168.]

2270 (return)
[ Personal knowledge, as I visited Besançon four times between 1863 and 1867.]

2271 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of May 30, 1790, and others following. (Report of Treilhard, speech by Robespierre.)]

2272 (return)
[ Duvergier, laws of July 12th-August 14th; November 14-25, 1790; January 21-26, 1791.]

2273 (return)
[ Moniteur, sitting of May 31, 1790. Robespierre, in covert terms, demands the marriage of priests.—Mirabeau prepared a speech in the same sense, concluding that every priest and monk should be able to contract marriage; on the priest or monk presenting himself with his bride before the curé, the latter should be obliged to give them the nuptial benediction etc. Mirabeau wrote, June 2, 1790: "Robespierre... has juggled me out of my motion on the marriage of priests."—In general the germ of all the laws of the Convention is found in the Constituent Assembly. (Ph. Plan, "Un Collaborateur de Mirabeau," p.56, 144.)]

2274 (return)
[ Duvergier, laws of November 27th—December 26, 1790; February 5th, March 22nd, and April 5, 1791.—Moniteur, sitting of November 6, 1790, and those that follow, especially that of December 27th. "I swear to maintain with all my power the French Constitution and especially the decrees relating to the Civil Constitution of the clergy."—Cf. sitting of January 2, 1791, speech by the Bishop of Clermont.]

2275 (return)
[ Duvergier, law of May 7, 1791, to maintain the right of nonjuring priests to perform mass in national or private edifices. (Demanded by Talleyrand and Sieyès.)]

2276 (return)
[ "Archives Nationales," F7, 3235. Letter of M. de Château-Randon, deputy of la Lozère, May 28, 1791. After the decree of May 23rd, all the functionaries of the department handed in their resignations.]

2277 (return)
[ Duvergier, law of May 21-29, 1791.]

2278 (return)
[ Sauzay, I. 366, 538 to 593, 750.—"Archives Nationales," F7, 3235, Letter of M. de Chânteau-Randon, May 10, 1791.—Mercure, April 23rd, and April 16, 1701. Articles of Mallet du Pan, letter from Bordeaux, March 20, 1791.]

2279 (return)
[ Buchez and Roux, XII, 77. Report of Gallois and Gensonné sent to La Vendée and the Deux Sévres (July 25, 1791).—" Archives Nationales," F7, 3253, letter of the Directory of the Bas-Rhin (letter of January 7, 1792).—" Le District de Machecoul de 1788 à 1793," by Lallier.—" Histoire de Joseph Lebon," by Paris.—Sauzay, vol. I. and II. in full.]

2280 (return)
[ Mercure, January 15th, April 23rd, May 16th and 30th, June 1st, November 23rd, 1791.—"Le District de Machecoul," by Lallier, 173.—Sauzay, I. 295.—Lavirotte, "Annales d'Arnay-le-Duc" (February 5, 1792).—"Archives Nationales," F7, 3223. Petition of a number of the inhabitants of Montpellier, November 17, 1791.]

2281 (return)
[ Duvergier, decree of November 29, 1791.—Mercure, November 30, 1791 (article by Mallet du Pan).]

CHAPTER III. THE CONSTRUCTIONS—THE CONSTITUTION OF 1791.

That which is called a Government is a concert of powers, each with a distinct function, and all working towards a final and complete end. The merit of a Government consists in the attainment of this end; the worth of a machine depends upon the work it accomplishes. The important thing is not to produce a good mechanical design on paper, but to see that the machine works well when set up on the ground. In vain might its founders allege the beauty of their plan and the logical connection of their theorems; they are not required to furnish either plan or theorems, but an instrument.

Two conditions are requisite to render this instrument serviceable and effective. In the first place, the public powers must harmonize with each other, if not, one will neutralize the other; in the second place they must be obeyed, or they are null.

The Constituent Assembly made no provision for securing this harmony or this obedience. In the machine which it constructed the motions all counteract each other; the impulse is not transmitted; the gearing is not complete between the center and the extremities; the large central and upper wheels turn to no purpose; the innumerable small wheels near the ground break or get out of order: the machine, by virtue of its own mechanism, remains useless, over-heated, under clouds of waste steam, creaking and thumping in such a matter as to show clearly that it must explode.

I.—Powers of the Central Government.

Let us first consider the two central powers, the Assembly and the King.—Ordinarily when distinct powers of different origin are established by a Constitution, it makes, in the case of conflict between them, a provision for an arbiter in the institution of an Upper Chamber. Each of these powers, at least, has a hold on the other. The Assembly must have one on the King: which is the right to refuse taxation. The King must have one on the Assembly: which is the right of dissolving it. Otherwise, one of the two being disarmed, the other becomes omnipotent, and, consequently, insane. The peril here is as great for an omnipotent Assembly as it is for an absolute King. If the former is desirous of remaining in its right mind, it needs repression and control as much as the latter. If it is proper for the Assembly to restrain the King by refusing him subsidies, it is proper for him to be able to defend himself by appealing to the electors.—But, besides these extreme measures, which are dangerous and rarely resorted to, there is another which is ordinarily employed and is safe, that is, the right for the King to take his ministers from the Chamber. Generally, the leaders of the majority form the ministry, their nomination being the means of restoring harmony between the King and Assembly; they are at once men belonging to the Assembly and men belonging to the King. Through this expedient not only is the confidence of the Assembly assured, since the Government remains in the hands of its leaders, but also it is under restraint because these become simultaneously both powerful and responsible. Placed at the head of all branches of the service, they are, before proposing it or accepting it, in a position to judge whether a law is useful and practicable. Nothing is so healthy for a majority as a ministry composed of its own chiefs; nothing is so effective in repressing rashness or intemperance. A railway conductor is not willing that his locomotive should be deprived of coal, nor to have the rails he is about to run on broken up.—This arrangement, with all its drawbacks and inconveniences, is the best one yet arrived at by human experience for the security of societies against despotism and anarchy. For the absolute power which establishes or saves them may also oppress or exhaust them, there is a gradual substitution of differentiated powers, held together through the mediation of a third umpire, caused by reciprocal dependence and an which is common to both.

Experience, however, is unimportant to the members of the Constituent Assembly; under the banner of principles they sunder one after another all the ties which keep the two powers together harmoniously.—There must not be an Upper Chamber, because this would be an asylum or a nursery for aristocrats. Moreover, "the nation being of one mind," it is averse to "the creation of different organs." So, applying ready-made formulas and metaphors, they continue to produce ideological definitions and distinctions.

The King must not have a hold on the legislative body: the executive is an arm, whose business it is to obey; it is absurd for the arm to constrain or direct the head. Scarcely is the monarch allowed a delaying veto. Sieyès here enters with his protest declaring that this is a "lettre de cachet2301 launched against the universal will," and there is excluded from the action of the veto the articles of the Constitution, all money-bills, and some other laws.—Neither the monarch nor the electors of the Assembly are to convoke the Assembly; he has no voice in or oversight of the details of its formation; the electors are to meet together and vote without his summons or supervision. Once the Assembly is elected he can neither adjourn nor dissolve it. He cannot even propose a law;2302 per-mission is only granted to him "to invite it to take a subject into consideration." He is limited to his executive duties; and still more, a sort of wall is built up between him and the Assembly, and the opening in it, by which each could take the other's hand, is carefully closed up. The deputies are forbidden to become ministers throughout the term of their service and for two years afterwards. This is because fears are entertained that they might be corrupted through contact with the Court, and, again, whoever the ministers might be, there is no disposition to accept their ascendancy.2303 If one of them is admitted into the Assembly it is not for the purpose of giving advice, but to furnish information, reply to interrogatories, and make protestations of his zeal in humble terms and in a dubious position.2304 By virtue of being a royal agent he is under suspicion like the King himself, and he is sequestered in his bureau as the King is sequestered in his palace.—Such is the spirit of the Constitution: by force of the theory, and the better to secure a separation of the powers,2305 a common understanding between them is for ever rendered impossible, and to make up for this impossibility there remains nothing but to make one the master and the other the clerk.

This they did not fail to do, and for greater security, the latter is made an honorary clerk, The executive power is conferred on him nominally and in appearance; he does not possess it in fact, care having been taken to place it in other hands.—In effect, all executive agents and all secondary and local powers are elective. The King has no voice, directly or indirectly, in the choice of judges, public prosecutors, bishops, curés, collectors and assessors of the taxes, commissaries of police, district and departmental administrators, mayors, and municipal officers. At most, should an administrator violate a law, he may annul his acts and suspend him; but the Assembly, the superior power, has the right to cancel this suspension.—As to the armed force, of which he is supposed to be the commander-in-chief, this escapes from him entirely: the National Guard is not to receive orders from him; the gendarmerie and the troops are bound to respond to the requisitions of the municipal authorities, whom the King can neither select nor displace: in short, local action of any kind—that is to say, all effective action—is denied to him.—The executive instrument is purposely destroyed. The connection which existed between the wheels of the extremities and the central shaft is broken, and henceforth, incapable of distributing its energy, this shaft, in the hands of the monarch, stands still or else turns to no purpose. The King, "supreme head of the general administration, of the army, and of the navy, guardian of public peace and order, hereditary representative of the nation," is without the means, in spite of his lofty titles, of directly applying his pretended powers, of causing a schedule of assessments to be drawn up in a refractory commune, of compelling payment by a delinquent tax-payer, of enforcing the free circulation of a convoy of grain, of executing the judgment of a court, of suppressing an outbreak, or of securing protection to persons and property. For he can bring no constraint to bear on the agents who are declared to be subordinate to him; he has no resources but those of warning and persuasion. He sends to each Departmental Assembly the decrees which he has sanctioned, requesting it to transmit them and cause them to be carried out; he receives its correspondence and bestows his censure or approval—and that is all. He is merely a powerless medium of communication, a herald or public advertiser, a sort of central echo, sonorous and empty, to which news is brought, and from which laws depart, to spread abroad like a common rumor. Such as he is, and thus diminished, he is still considered to be too strong. He is deprived of the right of pardon, "which severs the last artery of monarchical government."2306 All sorts of precautions are taken against him. He cannot declare war without a decree of the Assembly; he is obliged to bring war to an end on the decree of the Assembly; he cannot make a treaty of peace, an alliance, or a commercial treaty, without the ratification of these by the Assembly. It is expressly declared that he is to nominate but two-thirds of the rear-admirals, one-half of the lieutenant-generals, field-marshals, captains of Vessels and colonels of the gendarmerie, one-third of the colonels and lieutenant-colonels of the line, and a sixth of the naval lieutenants. He must not allow troops to stay or pass within 30,000 yards of the Assembly. His guard must not consist of more than 1,800 men, duly verified, and protected against his seductions by the civil oath. The heir-presumptive must not leave the country without the Assembly's assent. It is the Assembly which is to regulate by law the education of his son during minority.—All these precautions are accompanied with threats. There are against him five possible causes of dethronement; against his responsible Ministers, eight causes for condemnation to from twelve to twenty years of constraint, and eight grounds for condemnations to death.2307 Everywhere between the lines of the Constitution, we read the constant disposition to assume an attitude of defense, the secret dread of treachery, the conviction that executive power, of whatever kind, is in its nature inimical to the public welfare.—For withholding the nomination of judges, the reason alleged is that "the Court and the Ministers are the most contemptible portion of the nation."2308 If the nomination of Ministers is conceded, it is on the ground that" Ministers appointed by the people would necessarily be too highly esteemed." The principle is that "the legislative body alone must possess the confidence of the people," that royal authority corrupts its depository, and that executive power is always tempted to commit abuses and to engage in conspiracies. If it is provided for in the Constitution it is with regret, through the necessity of the case, and on the condition of its being trammeled by impediments; it will prove so much the less baneful in proportion as it is restrained, guarded, threatened, and denounced.—A position of this kind is manifestly intolerable; and only a man as passive as Louis XVI. could have put up with it. Do what he will, however, he cannot make it a tenable one. In vain does he scrupulously adhere to the Constitution, and fulfill it to the letter. Because he is powerless the Assembly regards him as lukewarm, and imputes to him the friction of the machine which is not under his control. If he presumes once to exercise his veto it is rebellion, and the rebellion of an official against his superior, which is the Assembly; the rebellion of a subject against his Sovereign, which is the people. In this case dethronement is proper, and the Assembly has only to pass the decree; the people have simply to execute the act, and the Constitution ends in a Revolution.—A piece of machinery of this stamp breaks down through its own movement. In conformity with the philosophic theory the two wheels of government must be separated, and to do this they have to be disconnected and isolated one from the other. In conformity with the popular creed, the driving-wheel must be subordinated and its influence neutralized: to do this it is necessary to reduce its energy to a minimum, break up its connections, and raise it up in the air to turn round like a top, or to remain there as an obstacle to something else. It is certain that, after much ill-usage as a plaything, it will finally be removed as a hindrance.

II.—The Creation Of Popular Democracy.

Let us leave the center of government and go to the extremities, and observe the various administrations in working operation.2309

For any service to work well and with precision, there must be a single and unique chief who can appoint, pay, punish and dismiss his subordinates.—For, on the one hand, he stands alone and feels his responsibility; he brings to bear on the management of affairs a degree of attention and consistency, a tact and a power of initiation of which a committee is incapable; corporate follies or defects do not involve any one in particular, and authority is effective only when it is in one hand.—On the other hand, being master, he can rely on the subalterns whom he has himself selected, whom he controls through their hopes or fears, and whom he discharges if they do not perform their duties; otherwise he has no hold on them and they are not instruments to be depended on. Only on these conditions can a railway manager be sure that his pointsmen are on the job. Only on these conditions can the foreman of a foundry engage to execute work by a given day. In every public or private enterprise, direct, immediate authority is the only known, the only human and possible way to ensure the obedience and punctuality of agents.—Administration is thus carried on in all countries, by one or several series of functionaries, each under some central manager who holds the reins in his single grasp.2310

This is all reversed in the new Constitution. In the eyes of our legislators obedience must be spontaneous and never compulsory, and, in the suppression of despotism, they suppress government. The general rule in the hierarchy which they establish is that the subordinates should be independent of their superior, for he must neither appoint nor displace them: the only right he has is to give them advice and remonstrate with them.2311 At best, in certain cases, he can annul their acts and inflict on them a provisional suspension of their functions, which can be contested and is revocable.2312 We see, thus, that none of the local powers are delegated by the central power; the latter is simply like a man without either hands or arms, seated in a gilt chair. The Minister of the Finances cannot appoint or dismiss either an assessor or a collector; the Minister of the Interior, not one of the departmental, district, or communal administrators; the Minister of Justice, not one judge or public prosecutor. The King, in these three branches of the service, has but one officer of his own, the commissioner whose duty it is to advocate the observance of the laws in the courts, and, on sentence being given, to enforce its execution.—All the muscles of the central power are paralyzed by this stroke, and henceforth each department is a State apart, living by itself.

An similar amputation, however, in the department itself, has cut away all the ties by which the superior could control and direct his subordinate.—If the administrators of the department are suffered to influence those of the district, and those of the district those of the municipality, it is only, again, in the way of council and solicitation. Nowhere is the superior a commander who orders and constrains, but everywhere a censor who gives warnings and scolds. To render this already feeble authority still more feeble at each step of the hierarchy, it is divided among several bodies. These consist of superposed councils, which administer the department, the district, and the commune. There is no directing head in any of these councils. Permanency and executive functions throughout are vested in the directories of four or eight members, or in bureaus of two, three, four, six, and even seven members whose elected chief, a president or mayor,2313 has simply an honorary primacy. Decision and action, everywhere blunted, delayed, or curtailed by talk and the processes of discussion, are brought forth only after the difficult, tumultuous assent of several discordant wills.2314 Elective and collective as these powers are, measures are still taken to guard against them. Not only are they subject to the control of an elected council, one-half renewable every two years, but, again, the mayor and public prosecutor of the commune after serving four years, and the procureur-syndic of the department or district after eight years service, and the district collector after six years' service, are not re-elected. Should these officials have deserved and won the confidence of the electors, should familiarity with affairs have made them specially competent and valuable, so much the worse for affairs and the public; they are not to be anchored to their post.2315 Should their continuance in office introduce into the service a spirit of order and economy, that is of no consequence; there is danger of their acquiring to much influence, and the law sends them off as soon as they become expert and entitled to rule.—Never has jealousy and suspicion been more on the alert against power, even legal and legitimate. Sapping and mining goes on even in services which are recognized as essential, as the army and the gendarmerie.2316 In the army, on the appointment of a non-commissioned officer, the other non-commissioned officers make up a list of candidates, and the captain selects three, one of whom is chosen by the colonel. In the choice of a sub-lieutenant, all the officers of the regiment vote, and he who receives a majority is appointed. In the gendarmerie, for the appointment of a gendarme, the directory of the department forms a list; the colonel designates five names on it, and the directory selects one of them. For the choice of a corporal, quartermaster or lieutenant, there is, besides the directory and the colonel, another intervention, that of the officers, both commissioned and non-commissioned. It is a system of elective complications and lot-drawings; one which, giving a voice in the choice of officers to the civil authorities and to military subordinates, leaves the colonel with only a third or one-quarter of his former ascendancy. In relation to the National Guard, the new principle is applied without any reservation. All the officers and non-commissioned officers up to the grade of captain are elected by their own men. All the superior officers are elected by the inferior officers. All under-officers and all inferior and superior officers are elected for one year only, and are not eligible for re-election until after an interval of a year, during which they must serve in the ranks.2317—The result is manifest: command, in every civil and in every military order, becomes upset; subalterns are no longer precise and trustworthy instruments; the chief no longer has any practical hold on them; his orders, consequently, encounter only tame obedience, doubtful deference, sometimes even open resistance; their execution remains dilatory, uncertain, incomplete, and at length is utterly neglected; a latent and soon flagrant system of disorganization is instituted by the law. Step by step, in the hierarchy of Government, power has slipped downwards, and henceforth belongs by virtue of the Constitution to the authorities who sit at the bottom of the ladder. It is not the King, or the minister, or the directory of the department or of the district who rules, but its municipal officers; and their sway is as omnipotent as it can be in a small independent republic. They alone have the "strong hand" with which to search the pockets of refractory tax-payers, and ensure the collection of the revenue; to seize the rioter by the throat, and protect life and property; in short, to convert the promises and menaces of the law into acts. Every armed force, the National Guard, the regulars, and the gendarmerie, must march on their requisition. They alone, among the body of administrators, are endowed with this sovereign right; all that the department or the district can do is to invite them to exercise it. It is they who proclaim martial law. Accordingly, the sword is in their hands.2318 Assisted by commissioners who are appointed by the council-general of the commune, they prepare the schedule of taxation of real and personal property, fix the quota of each tax-payer, adjust assessments, verify the registers and the collector's receipts, audit his accounts, discharge the insolvent, answer for returns and authorize prosecutions.2319 Private purses are, in this way, at their mercy, and they take from them whatever they determine to belong to the public.—With the purse and the sword in their hands they lack nothing that is necessary to make them masters, and all the more because the application of every law belongs to them; because no orders of the Assembly to the King, of the King to the ministers, of ministers to the departments, of departments to the districts, of the districts to the communes, brings about any real local result except through them; because each measure of general application undergoes their special interpretation, and can always be optionally disfigured, softened, or exaggerated according to their timidity, inertia, violence or partiality. Moreover, they are not long in discovering their strength. We see them on all sides arguing with their superiors against district, departmental, and ministerial orders, and even against the Assembly itself; alleging circumstances; lack of means, their own danger and the public safety, failing to obey, acting for themselves, openly disobeying and glorying in the act,2320 and claiming, as a right, the omnipotence which they exercise in point of fact. Those of Troyes, at the festival of the Federation, refuse to submit to the precedence of the department and claim it for themselves, as "immediate representatives of the people." Those of Brest, notwithstanding the reiterated prohibitions of their district, dispatch four hundred men and two cannon to force the submission of a neighboring commune to a cure' who has taken the oath. Those of Arnay-le-Duc arrest Mesdames (the King's aunts), in spite of their passport signed by the ministers, hold them in spite of departmental and district orders, persist in barring the way to them in spite of a special decree of the National Assembly, and send two deputies to Paris to obtain the sanction of their decision. What with arsenals pillaged, citadels invaded, convoys arrested, couriers stopped, letters intercepted, constant and increasing insubordination, usurpations without truce or measure, the municipalities arrogate to themselves every species of license on their own territory and frequently outside of it. Henceforth, forty thousand sovereign bodies exist in the kingdom. Force is placed in their hands, and they make good use of it. They make such good use of it that one of them, the commune of Paris, taking advantage of its proximity, lays siege to, mutilates, and rules the National Convention, and through it France.