The Modern Regime Volume I Part 30

II. Local Community.

Local societies.--Their princ.i.p.al and distinctive character.--Their type on a small scale.--A dwelling-house in Annecy or Gren.o.ble.--Compulsory a.s.sociation of its inmates.--Its object and limits.--Private in character.

Let us first consider local society whether a province, a department, or a county. For the past ten years (1789-99), the legislator has unceasingly deformed and a.s.saulted. On his side, he refuses to open his eyes; preoccupied with theories, he will not recognize it for what it is in reality, a society of a distinct species, different from the State, with its own peculiar aims, its limits marked out, its members prescribed, its statutes drawn up, everything formed and defined beforehand. As it is local, it is founded on the greater or less proximity of its habitations. Thus, to comprehend it, we must take a case in which this proximity is greatest that of certain houses in some of our southeastern towns, as, for example, Gren.o.ble and Annecy. Here, a house often belongs to several distinct owners, each possessing his story, or apartment on a story, one owning the cellar and another the attic, each enjoying all the rights of property over his portion, the right of renting it, selling it, bequeathing it, and mortgaging it, but all holding it in common for the maintenance of the roof and the main walls.--Evidently, their a.s.sociation is not a free one; willingly or not, each forms a member of it, for, willingly or not, each benefits or suffers through the good or bad state of the roof and the princ.i.p.al walls: therefore, all must furnish their quota of the indispensable expenses; even a majority of votes would not rid them of these; one claimant alone would suffice to hold them responsible; they have no right to impose on him the danger which they accept for themselves, nor to s.h.i.+rk expenses by which they profit as well as himself. Consequently, on the report of an expert, the magistrate interferes, and, willingly or not, the repairs are made; then, willingly or not, both by custom and in law, each pays his quote, calculated according to the locative value of the portion belonging to him.--But here his obligations cease. In fact as in law, the community (of property) is restricted; the a.s.sociates take good care not to extend this, not to pursue other aims at the same time, not to add to their primitive and natural purpose a different and supplementary purpose, not to devote one room to a Christian chapel for the residents of the house, another room for a kindergarten for the children that live in it, and a side room to a small hospital for those who fall ill; especially, they do not admit that a tax may be imposed for these purposes and each of them be subject to a proportional increase of a.s.sessment at so many additional centimes per franc.[4103]

For, if the proprietor of the ground-floor is an Israelite, the proprietor of a room on the second story is a bachelor, the proprietor of the fine suite of rooms on the first story is rich, and has a doctor visit him at the house, these must pay for a service for which they get no return.--For the same reason, their a.s.sociation remains private; it does not form part of the public domain; they alone are interested in it; if the State let us use its tribunals and officials, it is the same as it is with ordinary private individuals. It would be unjust both against it and against itself if it would exclude or exempting it from common right, if it put it on its administrative rolls. It would deform and disrupt its work if it interfered with its independence, if added to its functions or to its obligations. It is not under its tutelage, obliged to submit its accounts to the prefect; it delegates no powers and confers no right of justice, or police; in short, it is neither its pupil nor its agent. Such is the lien which permanent proximity establishes between men; we see that it is of a singular species: neither in fact, nor in law, can the a.s.sociates free themselves from it; solely because they are neighbors, they form a community for certain indivisible or jointly owned things, an involuntary and obligatory community. To make amends, and even owing to this, I mean through inst.i.tution and in the natural order of things, their community is limited, and limited in two ways, restricted to its object and restricted to its members, reduced to matters of which proprietors.h.i.+p or enjoyment is forcibly in common, and reserved to inhabitants who, on account of situation and fixed residence, possess this enjoyment or this property.i

III. Essential Public Local Works.

a.n.a.lysis of other local societies, commune, department, or province.--Common interests which necessitate local action.

--Two objects in view: care of public roads and means of protection against spreading calamities.--Why collaboration is an obligation.--Neighbors involuntarily subject to a common bond on account of proximity.--Willingly or not each shares in its benefits.--What portion of the expense belongs to each.--Equal advantages for each.--The unequal and proportionate advantages for each in his private expenses, industrial or commercial gains, and in the locative value of his real estate.--Each person's quota of expense according to his equal and proportionate share in advantages.

All local societies are of this kind, each limited to a certain territory and included with others like it inside a larger area, each possessing two budgets depending on whether it is a distinct body or member of a larger corporation, each, from the commune to the department or province, inst.i.tuted on a basis of interests which make them jointly but involuntarily liable.--There are two of these important interests which, as in the Annecy building, elude human arbitrariness, which demand common action and distribution of the expense, because, as in the Annecy building, they are the inevitable results of physical proximity:

First, comes care for the public highways, by land or by water, river navigation, ca.n.a.ls, towing-paths, bridges, streets, public squares, by-roads, along with the more or less optional and gradual improvements which public roads demand or prescribe, such as their laying-out, sidewalks, paving, sweeping, lighting, drainage, sewers, rolling, ditches, leveling, embankments, and other engineering works, which establish or increase safety and convenience in circulation, with facilities for and dispatch in transportation.

Next, comes protection against the spread of calamities, such as fires, inundations, contagious diseases, epidemics, along with the more or less optional and remote precautions which this protection exacts or recommends, night watchers in Russia, dikes in Holland, levees in the valleys of the Po and the Loire, cemeteries and regulations for interment, cleanliness of the streets, ventilation of holes and corners, drainage of marshes, hydrants, and supplies of drinkable water, disinfecting of contaminated areas, and other preventive or necessary hygienic measures which remove or prevent insalubrities growing out of neighborhood or contact.

All this has to be provided for, and the enterprise, if not wholly and in its developments, at least in itself and in what is necessary, imposes itself, collectively, on all the inhabitants of the conscription, from the highest to the lowest. For, in the absence of a public road, none of them can do his daily work, travel about, or even leave his premises; while transportation ceases and trade is suspended; hence, commerce and other pursuits languish, industry is arrested, agriculture becomes impracticable or fruitless; the fields are no longer cultivated; while provisions, food, including bread,[4104] everything is wanting; the dwellings becoming uninhabitable, more so than the Annecy houses when the roofs fall in and let in the rain.--On the other hand, for lack of protection against calamities, these get a free rein: the day arrives when an equinoctial tide submerges the flat coastal area, when the river overflows and devastates the countryside, when the conflagration spreads, when small-pox and the cholera reach a contagious point, and life is in danger, far more seriously imperiled than when, in the Annecy domicile, the main walls threaten to tumble down.[4105]

Undoubtedly, I can personally accept this miserable condition of things, resign myself to it, and consent, as far as I am concerned, to shut myself up within my own walls, to fast there, and run the risk, more or less imminent, of being drowned, burnt, or poisoned; but I have no right to condemn another to do this, nor to refuse my contribution to a protection by which I am to profit. As to my share of the expense it is fixed beforehand, and fixed through my share in the benefit:

Whoever receives, owes, and in proportion to what he receives;

such is an equitable exchange; no society is prosperous and healthy without this; it is essential that, for each member of it, the duties should exactly compensate the advantages, and that the two sides of the scale should balance. In the local community, the care taken of public roads and the precautions taken against natural calamities are useful in two ways: one, which especially improves the condition of persons, and the other, which especially improves the condition of things. The first is equal and the same for all. The poor man, quite as much as the rich one, needs to go and come and to look after his affairs; he uses the street, pavement, sidewalks, bridges, highways, and public fountains quite as much; he equally benefits by the sweeping and lighting of the public gardens. It may be claimed that, in certain respects, he derives more benefits from all this; for he suffers sooner and more keenly when bad roads stop transportation, arrest labor, and increase the cost of food; he is more subject to contagion, to epidemics, to all physical ills; in case of a fire, the risks of a workman in his garret, at the top of steep, narrow stairs, are greater than those of the opulent proprietor on the first story, in a mansion provided with a broad range of steps. In case of inundation, the danger is more suddenly mortal for the humble villager, in his fragile tenement, than for the gentleman farmer in his ma.s.sive constructions. Accordingly, under this heading, the poor man owes as much as the rich one; the rich man, at least, owes no more than the poor one; if, each year, the poor man cannot pay but one franc, the rich one, each year, should not pay more than that sum likewise.--The second advantage, on the contrary, is not equal for all, but more or less great for each, according to what he spends on the spot, according to his industrial or commercial gains, and according to his local income. Indeed, the more perfect the public highway is, the more are the necessities and conveniences of life; whatever is agreeable and useful, even distant and remote, more within reach, and at my disposition, in my very hands, I enjoy it to the utmost, the measure of my enjoyment of it being the importance of my purchases, everything I consume, in short, my home expenditure.[4106] If I am, besides, industrial or in commerce, the state of the public highway affects me even more; for my transportation, more or less costly, difficult and slow, depends on that, and next, the receipt of my raw materials and goods, the sale of my manufactures, the dispatch of my merchandise, bought and sold, while the measure of this special interest, so direct and so intense, is the annual sum-total of my business, or, more strictly speaking, the probable sum of my profits.[4107] If, finally, I own real estate, a house or land, its locative value increases or diminishes according to the salubrity and convenience of its site, together with its facilities for cultivating, selling, and distributing its crops, for its various outlets, for its security against floods and fires, and, after this, to improvements in public transit, and to the collective works which protect both soil and buildings against natural calamities.[4108] It follows that the inhabitant who benefits from these services, owes a second contribution, greater or lesser according to the greater or lesser advantage which he derives from them.

IV. Local a.s.sociations.

Local society, thus const.i.tuted, is a collective legal ent.i.ty.--The sphere of its initiation and action.--Its relation to the State.--Distinction between the private and the public domain.

Such is in itself local society and, with or without the legislator's permission, we find it to be a private syndicate,[4109] a.n.a.logous to many others.[4110] Whether communal or departmental, it concerns, combines, and serves none but the inhabitants of one circ.u.mscription; its success or failure does not interest the nation, unless indirectly, and through a remote reaction, similar to the slight effect which, for good or ill, the health or sickness of one Frenchman produces on the ma.s.s of Frenchmen. That which directly and fully affects a local society is felt only by that society, the same as that which affects a private individual is felt only by him; it is a close corporation, and belongs to itself within its physical limits, the same as he, in his, belongs to himself; like him, then, it is an individual, less simple, but no less real, a human combination, endowed with reason and will, responsible for its acts, capable of wronging and being wronged; in brief, a legal ent.i.ty. Such, in fact, it is, and, through the explicit declaration of the legislator, who const.i.tutes it a legal ent.i.ty, capable of possessing, acquiring, and contracting, and of prosecuting in the courts of law: he likewise confers on the eighty-six departments and on the thirty-six thousand communes all the legal capacities and obligations of an ordinary individual. The State, consequently, in relations.h.i.+p to them and to all collective persons, is what it is with respect to a private individual, neither more nor less; its t.i.tle to intervene between them is not different. As justiciary, it owes them justice the same as to private persons, nothing more or less; only to render this to them, it has more to do, for they are composite and complex. By virtue even of its mandate, it is bound to enter their domiciles in the performance of its duty, to maintain probity and to prevent disorder, to protect there not alone the governed against the governors and the governors against the governed, but again the community, which is lasting, against its directors, who are temporary, to a.s.sign to each member his quota of dues or of charges, and his quote of influence or of authority, to regulate the way in which the society shall support and govern itself, to decide upon and sanction the equitable statute, to oversee and impose its execution, that is to say, in sum to maintain the right of each person and oblige each to pay what he owes.--This is difficult and delicate.

But, being done, the collective personality is, as much as any individual, complete and defined, independent and distinct from the State; by the same t.i.tle as that of the individual, it has its own circle of initiation and of action, its separate domain, which is its private affair. The State, on its side, has its own affairs too, which are those of the public; and thus, in the nature of things, both circles are distinct; neither of them should prey upon or encroach on the other.--Undoubtedly, local societies and the State may help each other, lend each other their agents, and thus avoid employing two for one; may reduce their official staff, diminish their expenses, and, through this interchange of secondary offices, do their work better and more economically. For example, the commune and the department may let the State collect and deposit their "additional centimes," borrow from it for this purpose its a.s.sessors and other accountants, and thus receive their revenues with no drawback, almost gratis, on the appointed day.

In the like manner, the State has very good reason for entrusting the departmental council with the re-distribution of its direct taxes among the districts, and the district council with the same re-distribution among the communes: in this way it saves trouble for itself, and there is no other more effective mode of ensuring an equitable allocation.

It will similarly be preferable to have the mayor, rather than anybody else, handle petty public undertakings, which n.o.body else could do as readily and as surely, with less trouble, expense, and mistakes, with fewer legal doc.u.ment, registers of civil status, advertis.e.m.e.nts of laws and regulations, transmissions by the orders of public authorities to interested parties, and of local information to the public authorities which they need, the preparation and revision of the electoral lists and of conscripts, and co-operation in measures of general security. Similar collaboration is imposed on the captain of a merchant vessel, on the administrators of a railway, on the director of a hotel or even of a factory, and this does not prevent the company which runs the s.h.i.+p, the railway, the hotel, or the factory, from enjoying full owners.h.i.+p and the free disposition of its capital; from holding meetings, pa.s.sing resolutions, electing directors, appointing its managers, and regulating its own affairs, preserving intact that precious faculty of possessing, of willing and of acting, which cannot be lost or alienated without ceasing to be a personality. To remain a personality (i.e. a legal ent.i.ty), such is the main interest and right of all persons, singly or collectively, and therefore of local communities and of the State itself; it must be careful not to abdicate and be careful not to usurp.--It renounces in favor of local societies when, through optimism or weakness, it hands a part of the public domain over to them; when it gives them the responsibility for the collection of its taxes, the appointment of its judges and police-commissioners, the employment of its armed forces, when it delegates local functions to them which it should exercise itself, because it is the special and responsible director, the only one who is in a suitable position, competent, well provided, and qualified to carry them out. On the other side, it causes prejudice to the local societies, when it appropriates to itself a portion of their private domain, when it confiscates their possessions, when it disposes of their capital or income arbitrarily, when it imposes on them excessive expenses for wors.h.i.+p, charity, education, and any other service which properly belongs to a different a.s.sociation; when it refuses to recognize in the mayor the representative of the commune and the government official, when it subordinates the first of these two t.i.tles to the second, when it claims the right of giving or taking away, through with the second which belongs to it, the first which does not belong to it, when in practice and in its grasp the commune and department cease to be private companies in order to become administrative compartments.--According to the opportunity and the temptation, it glides downhill, now toward the surrender of its duty, and now toward the meddlesome interference of an intruder.

V. Local versus State authority.

Case in which the State abdicates.--Anarchy during the Revolution.--Case in which the State usurps.--Regime of the year VIII.--Remains of local independence under the ancient regime.--Destroyed under the new regime.--Local society after 1800.

From and after 1789, the State, pa.s.sing through intermittent fits and starts of brutal despotism, had resigned its commission. Under its almost nominal sovereignty, there were in France forty-four thousand small States enjoying nearly sovereign power, and, most frequently, sovereignty in reality.[4111] Not only did the local community manage its private affairs, but again, in the circ.u.mscription, each exercised the highest public functions, disposed of the national guard, of the police force, and even of the army, appointed civil and criminal judges, police commissioners,[4112] the a.s.sessors and collectors of taxes. In brief, the central State handed over, or allowed the seizure of the powers of which it ought never to deprive itself, the last of its means by which alone it acts effectively and on the spot,

* its sword, which it alone should wield,

* its scales of justice, which it alone should hold,

* its purse, for it to fill, and we have seen with what harm to individuals, to the communes, and to itself, with what a lamentable series of disastrous results:

* universal, incurable, persistent anarchy,

* impotence of the government,

* violation of the laws,

* complete stoppage of revenue, an empty treasury,

* despotism of the strong, oppression of the weak,

* street riots,

* rural brigandage,

* extortions and waste at the town halls,

* munic.i.p.al usurpations and abdications,

* ruin of the highways, and all useful public works and buildings, and

* the ruin and distress of the communes.[4113]

In contrast with this, and through disgust, the new Regime takes the other side, and even goes to the other extreme; the central State, in 1800, no longer a party that has resigned, as formerly, becomes the interloper. Not only does it take back from local communities the portion of the public domain which had been imprudently conceded to them, but, again, it lays its hand on their private domain; it attaches them to it by way of appendices, while its systematic, uniform usurpation, accomplished at one blow, spread over the whole territory, again plunges them all, communes and departments alike, into a chaos in which, under the old monarchy, they would never have fallen.

Before 1789, collective legal ent.i.ties (persons), provincial and communal, still existed. On the one hand, five or six great local bodies, represented by elective a.s.semblies, full of life and spontaneously active, among others those of Languedoc and Brittany, still provided for and governed themselves. The other provinces, which the central power had reduced to administrative districts, retained, at least, their historic cohesion, their time-honored name, the lament for, or at least the souvenir of, their former autonomy, and, here and there, a few vestiges or fragments of their lost independence; and, better yet, these old, paralyzed, but not mutilated bodies, had just a.s.sumed new life, and under their renewed organism were striving to give the blood in their veins a fresh start. Twenty-one provincial a.s.semblies, inst.i.tuted over the entire territory, between 1778 and 1787, and provided with powers of considerable importance, undertook, each in its own sphere, to direct provincial interests. Communal interest, also, had its representatives in the urban or rural communes. In the towns, a deliberative a.s.sembly, composed of the leading notables and of delegates elected by all the corporations and communities in the place, formed an intermittent munic.i.p.al council the same as to-day, but much more ample, which voted and pa.s.sed resolutions on important occasions; there was a board of management at the head of it, "the town corps," comprising the various munic.i.p.al officials, the mayor, his lieutenant, sheriffs, prosecuting attorney, treasurer, and clerk,[4114] now elected by the deliberative a.s.sembly, now the legal purchasers, heirs, and proprietors of their office, the same as a notary or advocate of to-day owns his office, protected against administrative caprices by a royal acquittance, and, for a money consideration, t.i.tular in their towns, the same as a parliamentarian in his parliament, and hence planted in, or grafted upon, the commune like a parliamentarian among his peers, and, like him, defenders of local interests against the central power.--In the village, the heads of families met together on the public square, deliberated in common over common affairs, elected the syndic, likewise the collectors of the taille, and deputies to the intendant; of their own accord, but with his approval, they taxed themselves for the support of the school, for repairs to the church or fountain, and for beginning or carrying on a suit in court.--All these remains of the ancient provincial and communal initiative, respected or tolerated by monarchical centralization, are crushed out and extinguished. The First Consul very soon falls upon these local societies and seizes them in his claws; in the eyes of the new legislator they scarcely seem to exist; there must not be any local personalities for him. The commune and department, in his eyes, are merely territorial districts, physical portions of the public domain, provincial workshops to which the central State transfers and uses its tools, in order to work effectively and on the spot. Here, as elsewhere, he takes the business entirely in his own hands; if he employs interested parties it is only as auxiliaries, at odd times, for a few days, to operate with more discernment and more economy, to listen to complaints and promises, to become better informed and the better to apportion changes; but, except this occasional and subordinate help, the members of the local society must remain pa.s.sive in the local society; they are to pay and obey, and nothing more. Their community no longer belongs to them, but to the government; its chiefs are functionaries who depend on him, and not on it; it no longer issues its mandate; all its legal mandatories, all its representatives and directors, munic.i.p.al or general councilors, mayors, sub-prefects or prefects, are imposed on it from above, by a foreign hand, and, willingly or not, instead of choosing them, it has to put up with them.

VI. Local Elections under the First Consul.

Lists of notables.--Senatus-consultes of the year X.

--Liberal inst.i.tution becomes a reigning instrument.

--Mechanism of the system of appointments and candidatures.

--Decree of 1806 and suppression of candidatures.

At the beginning, an effort was made to put in practice the const.i.tutional principle proposed by Sieyes: Power in future, according the accepted formula, must come from above and confidence from below. To this end, in the year IX, the a.s.sembled citizens appointed one-tenth of their number, about 500,000 communal notables, and these, likewise a.s.sembled, appointed also one-tenth of their number, about 50,000 departmental notables. The government selected from this list the munic.i.p.al councilors of each commune, and, from this second list, the general councilors of each department.--The machine, however, is clumsy, difficult to set going, still more difficult to manage, and too unreliable in its operation. According to the First Consul, it is an absurd system, "a childish piece of ideology; a great nation should not be organized in this way."[4115] At bottom,[4116] "he does not want notables accepted by the nation. In his system, he is to declare who the notables of the nation shall be and stamp them with the seal of the State; it is not for the nation to present them to the head of the State stamped with the national seal." Consequently, at the end of a year, he becomes, through the establishment of electoral colleges, the veritable grand-elector of all the notables; he has transformed, with his usual address, a liberal inst.i.tution into a reigning instrumentality.[4117]

Provisionally, he holds on to the list of communal notables, "because it is the work of the people, the result of a grand movement which must not prove useless, and because, moreover, it contains a large number of names.... offering a wide margin from which to make good selections.[4118] He brings together these notables in each canton, and invites them to designate their trusty men, the candidates from which he will choose munic.i.p.al councilors. But, as there are very few cultivated men in the rural districts, "nearly always it is the old seignior who would get himself designated";[4119] it is essential that the hand of the government should not be forced, that its faculty of choosing should not be restricted. Thus, the presentation of munic.i.p.al councilors of that category must cease, there must no longer be any preliminary candidates. Now, according the senatus-consulte, this category is a large one, for it comprises all communes of less than 5000 souls, and therefore over 35,000 munic.i.p.al councils out of 36,000, whose members are appointed arbitrarily, without the citizens whom they represent taking any part in their nomination.--Four or five hundred average or large communes still remain, in which for each munic.i.p.al post, the cantonal a.s.sembly designates two candidates between whom the government chooses. Let us see this a.s.sembly duly installed and at work.

Its president, as a precautionary step, is imposed upon it. He is appointed in advance by the government, and is well informed as to what the government wants. He alone controls the police of the chamber and the order of all deliberations. On opening the session, he draws a list from his pocket, which list, furnished by the government, contains the names of one hundred of the heaviest taxpayers of the canton, from whom the a.s.sembly must select its candidates. The lists lies spread out on the table, and the electors advance in turn, spell the names, and try to read it over. The president would not be very adroit and show but little zeal did he not help them in reading it, and if he did not point out by some sign, a tone of the voice, or even a direct word, what names were agreeable to the government. Now, this government, which has five hundred thousand bayonets at command, dislikes opposition: the electors know it, and look twice before expressing any counter opinion; it is very probable that most of the names suggested by the government are found on their ballots; were only one-half of them there, these would suffice; of the two candidates proposed for each place, if one is acceptable this one will be elected; after making him a candidate the government makes sure that he will become t.i.tular. The first act of the electoral comedy is played, and it is not long before no trouble whatever is taken to play it. After January, 1806, by virtue of a decree which has pa.s.sed himself, Napoleon is the only one[4120] who will directly fill every vacancy in the munic.i.p.al councils; from now on these councils are to owe their existence wholly to him. The two qualities which const.i.tute them, and which, according to Sieyes, are derived from two distinct sources, are now derived from only one source. Only the Emperor can confer upon them both public confidence and legal power.

The second act of the comedy begins; this act is more complicated, and comprises several scenes which end, some of them, in the appointment of the arrondiss.e.m.e.nt councils, and others in that of the council-general of the department. We will take only the latter, the most important;[4121] there are two, one following the other, and in different places.--The first one[4122] is played in the cantonal a.s.sembly above described; the president, who has just directed the choice of munic.i.p.al candidates, draws from his portfolio another list, likewise furnished to him by the prefect, and on which six hundred names of those who pay the heaviest taxes in the department are printed. It is from among these six hundred that the cantonal a.s.sembly must elect ten or twelve members who, with their fellows, chosen in the same way by the other cantonal a.s.semblies, will form the electoral college of the department, and take their seats at the chief town of the prefecture.

This time again, the president, who is the responsible leader of the cantonal flock, takes care to conduct it; his finger on the list indicates to the electors which names the government prefers; if need be, he adds a word to the sign he makes, and, probably, the voters will be as docile as before; and all the more because the composition of the electoral college only half interests them. This college, unlike the munic.i.p.al council, does not touch or hold any of them on their sensitive side; it is not obliged to tighten or loosen their purse-strings; it does not vote the "additional centimes"; it does not meddle with their business; it there only for show, to simulate the absent people, to present candidates, and thus perform the second electoral scene in the same way as the first one, but at the chief town of the prefecture and by new actors. These extras are also led by a head conductor, appointed by the government, and who is responsible for their behavior, "a president who has in sole charge the police of their a.s.sembled college,"

and must direct their voting. For each vacancy in the council-general of the department, they are to present two names; certainly, almost without any help, and with only a discrete hint, they will guess the suitable names. For they are smarter, more open-minded, than the backward and rural members of a cantonal a.s.sembly; they are better informed and better "posted," they have visited the prefect and know his opinion, the opinion of the government, and they vote accordingly. It is certain that one-half, at least, of the candidates whom they present on the list are good, and that suffices, since twice the required number of candidates have to be nominated. And yet, in Napoleon's eye, this is not sufficient. For the nomination of general councilors,[4123] as well as that of munic.i.p.al councilors, he suppresses preliminary candidature, the last remnant of popular representation or delegation. According to his theory, he is himself the sole representative and delegate of the people, invested with full powers, not alone in the State, but again in the department and commune, the prime and the universal motor of the entire machine, not merely at the center, but again at the extremities, dispenser of all public employments, not merely to suggest the candidate for these and make him t.i.tular, but again to create directly and at once, both t.i.tular and candidate.