The Modern Regime Volume I Part 11

I. The Inst.i.tution of Government.

Conditions on which the public power can act.--Two points forgotten by the authors of the preceding const.i.tutions.-- Difficulty of the undertaking and poor quality of the available materials.

Every human society requires government, that is to say an authority. No other machinery is more useful. But a machinery is useful only if it is adapted to its purpose; if not it will not work, or may even work contrary to its purpose. Hence, during its construction, one must first of all consider the magnitude of the work it has to do as well as the quality of the materials one has at one's disposal. It is very important to know beforehand whether it will lift 100 or of 100,000 kilograms, whether the pieces fitted together will be of iron or of steel, of sound or of unsound timber.--But the legislators had not taken that into consideration during the last ten years. They had set themselves up as theoreticians, and likewise as optimists, without looking at the things, or else imagining the them as they wished to have them. In the national a.s.semblies, as well as with the public, the task was deemed easy and simple, whereas it was extraordinary and immense; for the matter in hand consisted in effecting a social revolution and in carrying on an European war. The materials were supposed to be excellent, as manageable as they were substantial, while, in fact, they were very poor, being both refractory and brittle, for these human materials consisted of the Frenchmen of 1789 and of the following years; that is to say, of exceedingly sensitive men doing each other all possible harm, inexperienced in political business, Utopians, impatient, intractable, and overexcited. Calculations had been made on these prodigiously false data; consequently, although the calculations were very exact, the results obtained were found absurd. Relying on these data, the machine had been planned, and all its parts been adjusted, a.s.sembled, and balanced. That is why the machine, irreproachable in theory, remained unsuccessful in practice: the better it appeared on paper the quicker it broke down when set up on the ground.

II. Default of previous government.

The consequences of the years 1789 to 1799.--Insubordination of the local powers, conflict of the central powers, suppression of liberal inst.i.tutions, and the establishment of an unstable despotism.--Evil-doing of the government thus formed.

A capital defect at once declared itself in the two princ.i.p.al compositions, in the working gear of the superposed powers and in the balance of the motor powers.--In the first place, the hold given to the central government on its local subordinates was evidently too feeble; with no right to appoint these, it could not select them as it pleased, according to the requirements of the service. Department, district, canton, and commune administrators, civil and criminal judges, a.s.sessors, appraisers, and collectors of taxes, officers of the national-guard and even of the gendarmerie, police-commissioners, and other agents who had to enforce laws on the spot, were nearly all recruited elsewhere: either in popular a.s.semblies or provided ready-made by elected bodies.[2101] They were for it merely borrowed instruments; thus originating, they escaped its control; it could not make them work as it wanted them to work. On most occasions they would shirk their duties; at other times, on receiving orders, they would stand inert; or, again, they would act outside of or beyond their special function, either going too far or acting in a contrary sense; never did they act with moderation and precision, with coherence and consequence. For this reason any desire of the government to do its job proved unsuccessful.

Its legal subordinates--incapable, timid, lukewarm, unmanageable, or even hostile--obeyed badly, did not obey at all, or willfully disobeyed.

The blade of the executive instrument, loose in the handle, glanced or broke off when the thrust had to be made.

In the second place, never could the two or three motor forces thrusting the handle act in harmony, owing to the clashing of so many of them; one always ended in breaking down the other. The Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly had set aside the King, the Legislative a.s.sembly had deposed him, the Convention had decapitated him. Afterward each fraction of the sovereign body in the Convention had proscribed the other; the Montagnards had guillotined the Girondists, and the Thermidorians had guillotined the Montagnards. Later, under the Const.i.tution of the year III, the Fructidorians had banished the Const.i.tutionalists, the Directory had purged the Councils, and the Councils had purged the Directory.--Not only did the democratic and parliamentary inst.i.tution fail in its work and break down on trial, but, again, through its own action, it became transformed into its opposite. In a year or two a coup d'etat in Paris took place; a faction seized the central power and converted it into an absolute power in the hands of five or six ringleaders. The new government at once re-forged the executive instrument for its own advantage and refastened the blade firmly on the handle; in the provinces it dismissed those elected by the people and deprived the governed of the right to choose their own rulers; henceforth, through its proconsuls on mission, or through its resident commissioners, it alone appointed, superintended, and regulated on the spot all local authorities.[2102]

Thus the liberal const.i.tution, at its close, gave birth to a centralized despotism, and this was the worst of its species, at once formless and monstrous; for it was born out of a civil crime, while the government which used it had no support but a band of bigoted fanatics or political adventurers; without any legal authority over the nation, or any moral hold on the army, detested, threatened, discordant, exposed to the resistance of its own upholders, to the treachery of its own members, and living only from day to day, it could maintain itself only through a brutal absolutism and permanent terror, while the public power of which the first care is the protection of property, consciences, and lives, became in its hands the worst of persecutors, robbers, and murderers.

III. In 1799, the undertaking more difficult and the materials worse.

Twice in succession had the experiment been tried, the monarchical const.i.tution of 1791, and the republican const.i.tution of 1795; twice in succession had the same events followed the same course to attain the same end; twice in succession had the theoretical, cunningly-devised machine for universal protection changed into an efficient and brutal machine for universal oppression. It is evident that if the same machine were started the third time under a.n.a.logous conditions, one might expect to see it work in the same manner; that is to say, contrary to its purpose.

Now, in 1799, the conditions were a.n.a.logous, and even worse, for the work which the machine had to do was not less, while the human materials available for its construction were not so good.--Externally, the country was constantly at war with Europe; peace could not be secured except by great military effort, and peace was as difficult to preserve as to win. The European equilibrium had been too greatly disturbed; neighboring or rival States had suffered too much; the rancor and distrust provoked by the invading revolutionary republic were too active; these would have lasted a long time against pacified France even after she had concluded reasonable treaties. Even should she abandon a policy of propaganda and interference, return brilliant acquisitions, cease the domination of protectorates, and abandon the disguised annexation of Italy, Holland, and Switzerland, the nation was still bound to keep watch under arms. A government able to concentrate all its forces--that is to say, placed above and beyond all dispute and promptly obeyed-was indispensable, if only to remain intact and complete, to keep Belgium and the frontier of the Rhine.--Likewise internally, and for no other purpose than to restore civil order; for here, too, the outrages of the Revolution had been too great. There had been too much spoliation, too many imprisonments, exiles, and murders, too many violations of every kind, too many invasions of the rights of property and of persons, public and private. It was so much more difficult

* To insure respect for persons and all private and public possessions;

* to restrain at once both Royalists and Jacobins;

* to restore 140,000 emigres to their country and yet satisfy 1,200,000 possessors of national property;

* to give back to 25,000,000 of orthodox Catholics the right, faculty, and means for worshipping, and yet not allow the schismatic clergy to be maltreated;

* to bring face to face in the same commune the dispossessed seigneur and the peasant holders of his domain;

* to compel the delegates of the Committee of Public Safety and their victims, the shooters and the shot of Vendemiaire, the Fructidorians and the Fructidorized, the Whites and the Blues of La Vendee and Brittany, to live in peace side by side,

because the future laborers in this immense work, from the village mayor to the state-senator and state-councilor, had borne a part in the Revolution, either in effecting it or under subjection to it--Monarchists, Feuillantists, Girondists, Montagnards, Thermidorians, moderate Jacobins or desperate Jacobins, all oppressed in turn and disappointed in their calculations. Their pa.s.sions, under this regime, had become embittered; each brought personal bias and resentment into the performance of his duties; to prevent him from being unjust and mischievous demanded a tightened curb.[2103] All sense of conviction, under this regime, had died out; no body would serve gratis as in 1789;[2104] n.o.body would work without pay; disinterestedness had lost all charm; ostentatious zeal seemed hypocrisy; genuine zeal seemed self-dupery; each looked out for himself and not for the community; public spirit had yielded to indifference, to egotism, and to the need of security, of enjoyment, and of self-advancement. Human materials, deteriorated by the Revolution, were less than ever suited to providing citizens--they simply furnished functionaries. With such wheels combined together according to formula current between 1791 and 1795, the requisite work could not possibly be done. As a consequence, definitely and for a long time, any use of the two great liberal mechanisms were doomed. So long as the wheels remained of such poor quality and the task so hard, both the election of local powers and the division of the central power had to be abandoned.

IV. Motives for suppressing the election of local powers.

Motives for suppressing the election of local powers.--The Electors.--Their egoism and partiality.--The Elected.--Their inertia, corruption, and disobedience.

All were agreed on the first point. If any still doubted, they had only to open their eyes, fix them on the local authorities, watch them as soon as born, and follow them throughout the exercise of their functions.--Naturally, in filling each office, the electors had chosen a man of their own species and caliber; their fixed and dominant disposition was accordingly well known; they were indifferent to public matters and therefore their candidate was as indifferent as themselves.

Had they shown too great a concern for the nation this would have prevented their election; the State to them was a troublesome moralist and remote creditor. Their candidate must choose between them and this intruder, side with them against it, and not act as a pedagogue in its name or as bailiff on its behalf. When power is born on the spot and conferred to-day by const.i.tuents who are to submit to it to-morrow as subordinates, they do not put the whip in the hands of one who will flog them; they demand sentiments of him in conformity with their inclinations; in any event they will not tolerate in him the opposite ones. From the beginning, this resemblance between them and him is great, and it goes on increasing from day to day because the creature is always in the hands of his creators; subject to their daily pressure, he at last becomes as they are; after a certain period they have shaped him in their image.--Thus the candidate-elect, from the start or very soon after, became a confederate with his electors. At one time, and this occurred frequently, especially in the towns, he had been elected by a violent sectarian minority; he then subordinated general interests to the interests of a clique. At another, and especially in the rural districts, he had been elected by an ignorant and brutal majority, when he accordingly subordinated general interests to those of a village.--If he chanced to be conscientious and somewhat intelligent and was anxious to do his duty, he could not; he felt himself weak and was felt to be weak;[2105] both authority and the means for exercising it were wanting in him. He had not the force which a power above communicates to its delegates below; n.o.body saw behind him the government and the army; his only resource was a national-guard, which either shirked or refused to do its duty, and which often did not exist at all.--On the contrary, he could prevaricate, pillage, and persecute for his own advantage and that of his clique with impunity; for there was no restraint on him from above; the Paris Jacobins would not be disposed to alienate the Jacobins of the province; they were partisans and allies, and the government had few others; it was bound to retain them, to let them intrigue and embezzle at will.

Suppose an extensive domain of which the steward is appointed, not by the absent owner, but by his tenants, debtors, farmers, and dependents: the reader may imagine whether rents will be paid and debts collected, whether road-taxes will be worked out, what care will be taken of the property, what its annual income will be to the owner, how abuses of commission and omission will be multiplied indefinitely, how great the disorder will be, the neglect, the waste, the fraud, the injustice, and the license.--The same in France,[2106] and for the same reason:

* every public service disorganized, destroyed, or perverted;

* no justice, no police;

* authorities abstaining from prosecution, magistrates not daring to condemn, a gendarmerie which receives no orders or which stands still;

* rural marauding become a habit;

* roving bands of brigands in forty-five departments;

* mail wagons and coaches stopped and pillaged even up to the environs of Paris;

* highways broken up and rendered impa.s.sable;

* open smuggling, customs yielding nothing, national forests devastated, the public treasury empty,[2107] its revenues intercepted and expended before being deposited, taxes decreed and not collected;

* everywhere arbitrary a.s.sessments of real and personal estate, no less wicked exemptions than overcharges;

* in many places no list prepared for tax a.s.sessments,

* communes which here and there, under pretext of defending the republic against neighboring consumers, exempt themselves from both tax and conscription;

* conscripts to whom their mayor gives false certificates of infirmity and marriage, who do not turn out when ordered out, who desert by hundreds on the way to headquarters, who form mobs and use guns in defending themselves against the troops,--such were the fruits of the system.

The government could not constrain rural majorities with the officials chosen by the selfish and inept rural majorities. Neither could it repress the urban minorities with agents elected by the same partial and corrupt urban minorities. Hands are necessary, and hands as firm as tenacious, to seize conscripts by the collar, to rummage the pockets of taxpayers, and the State did not have such hands. They were required right away, if only to prepare and provide for urgent needs. If the western departments had to be subdued and tranquilized, relief furnished to Ma.s.sena besieged in Genoa, Melas prevented from invading Provence, Moreau's army transported over the Rhine, the first thing was to restore to the central government the appointment of local authorities.

V. Reasons for centralization.

Reasons for placing the executive central power in one hand.--Sieyes' chimerical combinations.--Bonaparte's objections.

On this second point, the evidence was scarcely less.--And clearly, the moment the local powers owed their appointment to the central powers, it is plain that the central executive power, on which they depend, should be unique. For, this great team of functionaries, driven from aloft, could not have aloft several distinct drivers; being several and distinct, the drivers would each pull his own way, while the horses, pulling in opposite directions, would do nothing but prance. In this respect the combinations of Sieyes do not bear examination. A mere theorist and charged with preparing the plan of a new const.i.tution, he had reasoned as if the drivers on the box were not men, but robots: perched above all, a grand-elector, a show sovereign, with two places to dispose of and always pa.s.sive, except to appoint or revoke two active sovereigns, the two governing consuls. One, a peace-consul, appointing all civil officers, and the other a war-consul, making all military and diplomatic appointments; each with his own ministers, his own council of state, his own court of judicature. All these functionaries, ministers, consuls, and the grand-elector himself, were revocable at the will of a senate which from day to day could absorb them, that is to say, make them senators with a salary of 30,000 francs and an embroidered dress-coat.[2108] Sieyes evidently had not taken into account either the work to be done or the men who would have to do it, while Bonaparte, who was doing the work at this very time, who understood men and who understood himself, at once put his finger on the weak spot of this complex mechanism, so badly adjusted and so frail. Two consuls,[2109]

"one controlling the ministers of justice, of the interior, of the police, of the treasury, and the other the ministers of war, of the navy, and of foreign affairs." The conflict between them is certain; look at them facing each other, subject to contrary influences and suggestions: around the former "only judges, administrators, financiers, and men in long robes," and round the latter "only epaulets and men of the sword." Certainly "one will need money and recruits for his army which the other will not grant."--And it is not your grand-elector who will make them agree. "If he conforms strictly to the functions which you a.s.sign to him he will be the mere ghost, the fleshless phantom of a roi faineant. Do you know any man vile enough to take part in such contrivances? How can you imagine any man of talent or at all honorable contentedly playing the part of a hog fattening himself on a few millions?"--And all the more because if he wants to abandon his part the door stands open. "Were I the grand-elector I would say to the war-consul and to the peace-consul on appointing them, If you put in a minister or sign a bill I don't like I'll put you out." Thus does the grand-elector become an active, absolute monarch.

"But," you may say, "the senate in its turn will absorb the grand-elector."--"The remedy is worse than the disease; n.o.body, according to this plan, has any guarantees," and each, therefore, will try to secure them to himself, the grand-elector against the senate, the consuls against the grand-elector, and the senate against the grand-elector and consuls combined, each uneasy, alarmed, threatened, threatening, and usurping to protect himself; these are the wheels which work the wrong way, in a machine constantly getting out of order, stopping, and finally breaking down entirely.

Thereupon, and as Bonaparte, moreover, was already master, all the executive powers were reduced to one, and this power was vested in him.[2110] In reality, "to humor republican opinion"[2111] they gave him two a.s.sociates with the same t.i.tle as his own; but they were appointed only for show, simply as consulting, inferior, and docile registrars, with no rights save that of signing their names after his and putting their signatures to the proces verbal declaring his orders; he alone commanded, "he alone had the say, he alone appointed to all offices," so that they were already subjects as he alone was already the sovereign.