The Modern Regime Volume I Part 32

[Footnote 4119: Ibid., p. 293. Senatus-consulte of Thermidor 16, year X, and of Fructidor 19, year X.]

[Footnote 4120: Decree of January 17, 1806, article 40.]

[Footnote 4121: Aucoc, "Conference sur l'administration et le droit administratif," ---- 101, 162, 165. In our legislative system the council of the arrondiss.e.m.e.nt has not become a civil personality, while it has scarcely any other object than to apportion direct taxes among the communes of the arrondiss.e.m.e.nt]

[Footnote 4122: Senatus-consulte of Thermidor 16, year X.]

[Footnote 4123: Decree of May 13, 1806, t.i.tle III., article 32.]

[Footnote 4124: Thibaudeau, ibid., 294 (Speech of the First Consul to the Council of State, Thermidor 16, year X). "What has become of the men of the Revolution? Once out of place, they have been entirely neglected: they have nothing left; they have no support, no natural refuge. Look at Barras, Reubell, etc." The electoral colleges are to furnish them with the asylum they lack. "Now is the time to elect the largest number of men of the Revolution; the longer we wait, the fewer there will be....

With the exception of some of them, who have appeared on a grand stage,... who have signed some treaty of peace... the rest are all isolated and in obscurity. That is an important gap which must be filled up.... It is for this reason that I have inst.i.tuted the Legion of Honor."]

[Footnote 4125: Baron de Vitrolles, "Memoires," preface, XXI. Comte de Villele, "Memoires et Correspondance," I., 189 (August, 1807).]

[Footnote 4126: Faber, "Notice sur l'interieur de la France" (1807), p.25.]

[Footnote 4127: Supporters of the Sovereign king or of the legitimate royal dynasty. (SR.)]

[Footnote 4128: The following doc.u.ment shows the sense and aim of the change, which goes on after the year VIII, also the contrast between both administrative staffs. (Archives Nationales, F 7, 3219; letter of M. Alquier to the First Consul, Pluviose 18, year VIII.) M. Alquier, on his way to Madrid, stops at Toulouse and sends a report to the authorities of Haute-Garonne: "I was desirous of seeing the central administration. I found there the ideas and language of 1793. Two personages, Citizens Barreau and Desbarreaux, play an active part then.

Up to 1792, the first was a shoemaker, and owed his political fortune simply to his audacity and revolutionary frenzy. The second, Desbarreaux, was a comedian of Toulouse, his princ.i.p.al role being that of valets. In the month of Prairial, year III, he was compelled to go down on his knees on the stage and ask pardon for having made incendiary speeches at some previous period in the decadal temple. The public, not deeming his apology sufficient, drove him out of the theater. He now combines with his function of departmental administrator the post of cashier for the actors, which thus brings him in 1200 francs... The munic.i.p.al councilors are not charged with lack of probity: but they are derived from too law a cla.s.s and have too little regard for themselves to obtain consideration from the public... The commune of Toulouse is very impatient at being governed by weak, ignorant men, formerly mixed in with the crowd, and whom, probably, it is urgent to send back to it.... It is remarkable that, in a city of such importance, which provides so large a number of worthy citizens of our sort of capacity and education, only men are selected for public duties who, with respect to instruction, attainments, and breeding, offer no guarantee whatever to the government and no inducement to win public consideration."]

[Footnote 4129: "Correspondance de Napoleon," No.4474, note dictated to Lucien, minister of the interior, year VIII.]

[Footnote 4130: Cf. "Proces-verbaux des conseil generaux" of the year VIII, and especially of the year IX. "Many of the cross roads have entirely disappeared at the hands of the neighboring owners of the land.

The paved roads are so much booty." (for example, Vosges, p.429, year IX.) "The roads of the department are in such a bad state that the landowners alongside carry off the stones to build their houses and wall in their inheritance. They encroach on the roads daily; the ditches are cultivated by them the same as their own property."]

[Footnote 4131: Laws of February 29--March 9, 1804 And February 28--March 10, 1805.]

[Footnote 4132: Laws of July 23, 1802, and of February 27, 1811.]

[Footnote 4133: "Correspondance de Napoleon," No. 4474 (note dictated to Lucien).]

[Footnote 4134: Decree of March 1, 1808: "Are counts by right, all ministers, senators, councilors of state for life, presidents of the corps Legislatif, and archbishops. Are barons by right, all bishops.

May become barons, after ten years of service, all first presidents and attorney generals, the mayors of the thirty-six princ.i.p.al towns. (In 1811, instead of 36, there are 52 princ.i.p.al towns.) May also become barons, the presidents and members of the department electoral colleges who have attended three sessions of these colleges."]

[Footnote 4135: Decree of Thermidor 4, year X.]

[Footnote 4136: Law of Pluviose 28, year VIII.]

[Footnote 4137: "Proces-verbaux des conseils generaux" of the years VIII and X. (The second series drawn up after those propounded by the minister Chaptal, is much more complete and furnishes an historical doc.u.ment of the highest importance.)]

[Footnote 4138: "Statistiques des prefets" (from the years IX to XIII, about 40 volumes).]

[Footnote 4139: Beugnot, "Memoires," I., 363.]

[Footnote 4140: Faber, ibid., 127.--Cf. Charlotte de Sohr, "Napoleon en 1811" (details and anecdotes on Napoleon's journey through Belgium and Holland).]

[Footnote 4141: Beugnot, I., 380, 384. "He struck the good Germans dumb with admiration, unable to comprehend how it was that their interests had become so familiar to him and with what superiority he treated them."]

[Footnote 4142: Beugnot, ibid., I., 395. Everywhere, on the Emperor's pa.s.sage (1811), the impression experienced was a kind of shock as at the sight of a wonderful apparition.]

[Footnote 4143: Thiers, "Histoire du Consulat et l'Empire," XVI., 246 (January, 1813). "A word to the prefect, who transmitted this to one of the munic.i.p.al councilors of his town, was enough to insure an offer from some large town and have this imitated throughout the empire. Napoleon had an idea that he could get towns and cantons to offer him troops of horse, armed and equipped."--In fact, this offer was voted with shouts by the Paris munic.i.p.al council and, through contagion, in the provinces.

As to voting this freely it suffices to remark how the annexed towns voted, which, six months later, are to rebel. Their offers are not the least. For instance, Amsterdam offers 100 hors.e.m.e.n, Hamburg 100, Rotterdam 50, the Hague 40, Leyden 24, Utrecht 20, Dusseldorf 12.--The hors.e.m.e.n furnished are men enlisted for money; 16,000 are obtained, and the sum voted suffices to purchase additionally 22,000 horses and 22,000 equipments.--To obtain this money, the prefect himself apportions the requisite sum among those in his department who pay the most taxes, at the rate of from 600 to 1000 francs per head. On these arbitrary requisitions and a great many others, either in money or in produce, and on the sentiments of the farmers and landed proprietors in the South, especially after 1813, cf. the "Memoires de M. Villele," vol. I., pa.s.sim.]

[Footnote 4144: Comte Joseph d'Estourmel, "Souvenirs de France et d'Italie," 240. The general council of Rouen was the first to suggest the vote for guards of honor. a.s.sembled spontaneously (meetings are always spontaneous), its members pa.s.s an enthusiastic address. "The example was found to be excellent; the address was published in the Moniteur, and sent to all the prefects.... The councils were obliged to meet, which generously disposed of other people's children, and very worthy persons, myself first of all, thought that they might join in this shameful purpose, to such an extent had imperial fanaticism fascinated them and perverted consciences!"]

[Footnote 4145: Archives nationales (state of accounts of the prefects and reports of the general police commissioners, F7, 5014 and following records.--Reports of senators on their senatoreries, AF, IV., 1051, and following records).--These papers disclose at different dates the state of minds and of things in the provinces. Of all these reports, that of Roederer on the senatorerie of Caen is the most instructive, and gives the most details on the three departments composing it. (Printed in his "aeuvres completes," vol. III.)]

[Footnote 4146: The reader will find in the Archives nationales, the fullest and most precise information concerning local administration and the sentiments of the different cla.s.ses of society, in the correspondence of the prefects of the first Restoration, of the hundred days, and of the second Restoration from 1814 to 1823 (Cf.

especially those of Haute-Garonne, the Rhine, Cote d'Or, Ain, Loiret, Indre-et-Loire, Indre, Loire-Inferieure and Aisne.) The letters of several prefects, M. de Chabroe, M. de Tocqueville, M. de Remusat, M. de Barante, are often worth publishing; occasionally, the minister of the interior has noted with a pencil in the margin, "To be shown to the King."]

[Footnote 4147: M. de Villele, ibid., I., 248.]

[Footnote 4148: Rocquam, "l'etat de la France au 18 Brumaire," reports of the councilors of state sent on missions, p.40.]

[Footnote 4149: De Feville, "La France economique," 248 and 249.]

[Footnote 4150: Pelet de la Lozere, "Opinions de Napoleon au conseil d'Etat," P. 277 (Session of March 15, 1806).--Decree of March 16, 1806, and of September 15, 1807.]

[Footnote 4151: Ibid., 276. "To those who objected that a tax could only be made according to law, Napoleon replied that it was not a tax, since there were no other taxes than those which the law established, and that this one (the extra a.s.sessment of a quarter of the produce of timber) was established by decree. It is only a master, and an absolute master, who could reason in this way."]

[Footnote 4152: Law of March 20, 1813. (Woods, meadows, and pasture-grounds used by the population in common are excepted, also buildings devoted to public use, promenades, and public gardens.)--The law takes rural possessions, houses and factories, rented and producing an income. Thiers, XVI., 279. The five percents at this time were worth 75 francs, and 138 millions of these gave a revenue of 9 millions, about the annual income derived by the communes from their confiscated real estate.]

[Footnote 4153: Aucoc, ibid., ---- 55 and 135.]

CHAPTER II. LOCAL SOCIETY SINCE 1830.

I. Introduction of Universal suffrage.

Local society since 1830.--Introduction of a new internal motor.--Subordinate to the external motor.--Advantageous under the system of universal suffrage.

Neither lips nor heart are capable of p.r.o.nouncing the above invigorating and conclusive phrase after a silence of 30 years. That local society ought to be a private a.s.sociation, does not interest those who are concerned, while the legislator does not permit it. Indeed, after the year VIII (1799), the State (Napoleon) introduces into the machine the new motivation described above. After the revolution of 1830,[4201] the munic.i.p.al and general councilors become elective and are appointed by a limited suffrage; after the revolution of 1848, they are elected by universal suffrage.[4202] After the revolution of 1870,[4203] each munic.i.p.al council elects its own mayor, while the council-general, whose powers are enlarged, leaves in its place, during its vacations, a standing committee who arrange with, and govern along with, the prefect.

Here, in local society, is a superadded internal motor, working from below, whilst the first one is external and works from above; from now on, both are to work together and in accord.--But, in reality, the second (the council-general) remains subordinate; moreover, it does not suit the machine[4204] and the machine does not suit it; it is only a superfluity, an inconvenient and c.u.mbersome intruder, nearly always useless, and often mischievous. Its influence is feeble and of little effect; too many brakes are attached to it; its force diminishes through the complexity of its numerous wheels; it fails in giving action; it cannot but little more than impede or moderate other impulses, those of the external motor, sometimes as it should, and sometimes the contrary.

Most frequently, even nowadays (1889), it is of no efficiency whatever.

Three-quarters of the munic.i.p.al councils, for three-fourths of their business, hold sessions only to give signatures. Their pretended deliberations are simply a parade formality; the incentive and direction continue to come from without, and from above; under the third Republic, as under the Restoration and the first Empire, it is always the central State which governs the local society; amid all the wrangling and disputes, in spite of pa.s.sing conflicts it is, and remains, the initiator, mover, leader, controller, accountant, and executor of every undertaking, the preponderating power in the department as well as in the commune, and with what deplorable results we all know.--There is still another and more serious result. Nowadays, its interference is an advantage, for should it renounce its preponderance this would pa.s.s over to the other power which, since this has become vested in a numerical majority, is mere blind and brutal force; abandoned to itself and without any counter-weight, its ascendancy would be disastrous, we would see reappearing along with the blunders of 1789, the outrages, usurpations, and distress of 1790, 1791 and 1792.[4205]--In any event, there is this advantage in despotic centralization, that it still preserves us from democratic autonomy. In the present state of inst.i.tutions and minds, the former system, objectionable as it may be, is our last retreat against the greater evil of the latter.

II. Universal suffrage.

Application of universal suffrage to local society.--Two a.s.sessments for the expenses of local society.--The fixed amount of one should in equity be equal to the average sum of the other.--Practically, the sum of one is kept too low.- -How the new regime provides for local expenditure.--The "additional centimes."--How the small taxpayer is relieved in town and country.--His quota in local expenditure reduced to the minimum.--His quota of local benefits remains intact.--Hence the large or average taxpayer bears, beside his own burden, that of the relieved small taxpayer.--Number of those relieved.--The extra burden of the large and average taxpayer is alms-giving.--The relief of the small taxpayer is a levy of alms.