ib., 443 "The pretended organic sénatus-consulte of Aug. 4, 1802, put an
end to notability by instituting electoral colleges... The First Consul
was really recognized as the grand-elector of the notability,"]
[Footnote 4117: Any dictator or dictator's draftsman will, upon reading
this understand how easy it is to make a sham constitution and sham
electoral systems for a de facto dictatorship.(SR.)]
[Footnote 4118: Thibaudeau, 72, 289 (words of the First Consul at a
meeting of the Council of State, Thermidor 16, year X).]
[Footnote 4119: Ibid., p. 293. Sénatus-consulte of Thermidor 16, year X,
and of Fructidor 19, year X.]
[Footnote 4120: Decree of January 17, 1806, article 40.]
[Footnote 4121: Aucoc, "Conférence sur l'administration et le droit
administratif," §§ 101, 162, 165. In our legislative system the council
of the arrondissement has not become a civil personality, while it
has scarcely any other object than to apportion direct taxes among the
communes of the arrondissement]
[Footnote 4122: Sénatus-consulte of Thermidor 16, year X.]
[Footnote 4123: Decree of May 13, 1806, title 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 instituted the Legion of
Honor."]
[Footnote 4125: Baron de Vitrolles, "Memoires," preface, XXI. Comte de
Villèle, "Memoires et Correspondance," I., 189 (August, 1807).]
[Footnote 4126: Faber, "Notice sur l'intérieur de la France" (1807),
p.25.]
[Footnote 4127: Supporters of the Sovereign king or of the legitimate
royal dynasty. (SR.)]
[Footnote 4128: The following document 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 principal 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
municipal councilors are not charged with lack of probity: but they are
derived from too law a class 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 Napoléon," No.4474, note dictated to
Lucien, minister of the interior, year VIII.]
[Footnote 4130: Cf. "Procés-verbaux des conseil généraux" 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 Napoléon," 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 principal towns. (In
1811, instead of 36, there are 52 principal 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 Pluviôse 28, year VIII.]
[Footnote 4137: "Procés-verbaux des conseils généraux" 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
document of the highest importance.)]
[Footnote 4138: "Statistiques des préfets" (from the years IX to XIII,
about 40 volumes).]
[Footnote 4139: Beugnot, "Mémoires," 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
passage (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 municipal 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 municipal 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 horsemen, Hamburg 100,
Rotterdam 50, the Hague 40, Leyden 24, Utrecht 20, Dusseldorf 12.--The
horsemen 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 "Mémoires de M. Villèle," vol. I.,
passim.]
[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. Assembled spontaneously (meetings are always
spontaneous), its members pass 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
"æuvres complètes," 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 classes 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, Côte d'Or, Ain, Loiret,
Indre-et-Loire, Indre, Loire-Inférieure 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 Villèle, ibid., I., 248.]
[Footnote 4148: Rocquam, "l'État 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 Lozère, "Opinions de Napoléon 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 assessment 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 pronouncing the above invigorating
and conclusive phrase after a silence of 30 years. That local society
ought to be a private association, 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
municipal 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
municipal 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 cumbersome 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 municipal 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 passing 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 pass 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
institutions 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
assessments 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 régime 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.
In effect, direct universal suffrage, counted by heads, is in local
society a discordant element, a monstrous system, to which it is
adverse. Constituted as this is, not by human judgment, but by the
preponderance of numbers and their force, its mechanism is determined
beforehand; it excludes certain wheels and connections.[4206] That
is why the legislator must write laws which reflect the nature of our
existence, or, at least, translate this as closely as he can, without
any gross contradiction. Nature herself presents him with ready-made
statutes.[4207] His business is to read these properly; he has already
transcribed the apportionment of burdens; he can now transcribe the
apportionment of rights.
So, we have seen, local society renders two distinct services[4208],
which, that the expenses of both may be met, require two distinct
assessments, one personal and the other real, one levied on everybody
and of which the amount is alike for all, and the other levied only on
those whose amount is based on what he spends, on the importance of his
business, and on the income from his real estate.--In strict equity,
the amount of the former should be equal to the average amount of the
latter; in effect, as has been shown, the services defrayed by the
former are as many, as diverse, and as precious, still more vital, and
not less costly than those of which the latter is the price. Of the
two interests which they represent, each, did it stand alone, would be
obliged to secure the same services, to take upon itself the whole of
the work; neither would obtain more in the dividend, and each would have
to pay the whole of the expense. Accordingly, each gains as much as the
other in the physical solidarity which binds them together. Hence, in
the legal bond which unites them they enter into it on an equal footing,
on condition that each is burdened or relived as much as the other, on
condition that if the latter assumes one-half of the expense the former
shall assume the other half, on condition that if the latter quota on
each one hundred francs expended against calamities and for public roads
is 50 francs, the former quota shall also be 50 francs.--Practically,
however, this is impossible. Three times out of four the former levy
with this apportionment would not be returned; through prudence as
well as humanity, the legislator is bound not to overburden the poor.
Recently, in organizing the general tax and the revenue of the State,
he has looked out for them; now, in organizing the local tax and the
revenue of the department or of the commune, he looks out for them to a
still greater extent.
In the new financial scheme, so many centimes, added to each franc of
direct tax, form the principal resource of the department and commune,
and it is through this extra charge that each taxpayer pays his quota
of local expenditure. Now, there is no surcharge on the personal tax,
no additional centimes. Under this heading, the laborer without any
property or income, the workman who lives in lodgings, on his wages, and
from day to day, contributes nothing to the expenses of his commune or
department. In vain do "additional centimes" pour down on other branches
of direct taxation; they are not grafted on this one, and do not suck
away the substance of the poor.[4209]--There is the same regard for the
half poor, in relation to the artisan who furnishes his own room, but
who lodges in an upper story, and in relation to the peasant whose hovel
or cottage has but one door and one window.[4210] Their rate of taxation
on doors and windows is very low, purposely reduced, kept below one
franc a year, while the rate of their personal tax is scarcely higher.
"Additional centimes" may be imposed on so small a principal and be
multiplied in vain, never will they reach more than an insignificant
amount.-Not only are the destitute relieved of both principal and
"additional centimes," the verified poor, those who are registered and
are helped, or should be, that is to say 2,470,000 persons;[4211] but,
again, others, by hundreds of thousands, whom the municipal council
judges incapable of paying.--Even when people possess but a small piece
of land, they are also relieved of the land tax and of the numerous
additional centimes which increase it. Such is the case with those
who are infirm or burdened with a family. The exchequer, so as not to
convert them into beggars and vagabonds, avoids expropriation, selling
out their concrete hovel, vegetable garden, and small field of potatoes
or cabbages; it gives them receipts gratis, or, at least, refrains
from prosecuting them.[4212] In this way the poor peasant, although
a land-owner, again exempts himself, or is exempted from his local
indebtedness. In truth, he pays nothing, or nearly nothing, otherwise
than by prestations (payments) in money or in kind; that is to say, by
three days' work on the district roads, which, if he pays in kind, are
not worth more than 50 sous.[4213] Add to this his portion, very small
and often null, of the additional centimes on the tax on doors and
windows, on the personal tax, and on the tax on real estate, in all 4
or 5 francs a year. Such is the amount by which the poor or half-poor
taxpayer in the villages liberates himself toward his department and
commune.--In the towns, he apparently pays more, owing to the octroi.
But, at first, there are only 1525 communes out of 36,000 in which the
octroi[4214] has been established; while in the beginning, under the
Directory and Consulate, it was revived only on his account, for his
benefit, in behalf of public charity, to defray the expenses of asylums
and hospitals ruined by revolutionary confiscation. It was then "an
octroi for charity," in fact as well as in name, like the surplus tax on
theater seats and tickets, established at the same time and for the same
purpose; it still to-day preserves the stamp of its first institution.
Bread, the indispensable provision for the poor, is not subjected to the
octroi nor the materials for making it, either grain or flour, nor
milk, fruits, vegetables, or codfish, while there is only a light tax
on butcher's meat. Even on beverages, where the octroi is heavier, it
remains, like all indirect taxes, nearly proportional and semi-optional.
In effect, it is simply an increase of the tax on beverages, so many
additional centimes per franc on the sum of indirect taxation, as
warrantable as the impost itself, as tolerable, and for the same
motives.[4215] For the greater the sobriety of the taxpayer, the less is
he affected by this tax. At Paris, where the increase is excessive,
and adds to the 6 centimes paid to the state, on each quart of wine, 12
centimes paid to the city; if he drinks but one quart a day, he pays,
under this heading, into the city treasury 43 francs 80 centimes per
annum: but, as compensation for this, he is free of personal tax of 11
3/4%, which this adds to the amount of each rental of the 11 3/4%,
whereby this would have added to his rent, and therefore 47 francs per
annum as a rent of 400 francs. Thus what he has paid with one hand
he gets back with the other. Now, at Paris, all rentals under 400
francs[4216] are thus free of any personal tax; all rentals between 400
and 1000 francs are more or less free, and, in the other octroi towns,
an analogous discharge reimburses to the small taxpayers a portion more
or less great of the sum they pay to the octroi.--Accordingly, in the
towns as in the country, they are favored at one time through fiscal
relief and at another through administrative favor, now through
compulsory deduction and now through total or partial reimbursement.
Always, and very wisely, the legislator apportions the burden according
to the strength of the shoulders; he relieves them as much as he can, at
first, of the general tax, and next, which is still better, of the local
tax. Hence, in local expenditure, their quota diminishes out of all
proportion and is reduced to the minimum. Nevertheless, their quota of
local benefit remains full and entire; at this insignificant price
they enjoy the public highways and profit by all the precautions taken
against physical ills; each profits by this personally, equally with any
millionaire. Each personally receives as much in the great dividend of
security, health, and convenience, in the fruit of the vast works of
utility and enjoyment due to improved communications, which preserve
health, assist traffic, and beautify the locality, and without which, in
town as well as in the country, life would be impossible or intolerable.
But these works which cost so much, these defensive operations and
apparatus against inundations, fires, epidemics, and contagions, these
500,000 kilometers of district and department roads, these dikes, quays,
bridges, public gardens, and promenades, this paving, drainage, sweeping
and lighting, these aqueducts and supplies of drinkable water, all
this is paid for by somebody, and, since it is not done by the small
taxpayer, it is the large or average taxpayer who pays for it. The
latter then, bears, besides his obligatory weight, a gratuitous surplus
burden, consisting of the weight of which the other is relieved.
Evidently the greater the number of the relieved, the heavier will be
this overweight, and the relieved count by millions. Two millions and
a half of declared poor[4217] are relieved of any direct tax, and,
therefore, of all the centimes which have just increased the burden.
Out of 8 millions of real-estate owners,[4218] 3 millions, considered
as insolvent, pay neither the real estate tax nor the centimes which it
comprises. In the octroi towns, it is not the minority but the majority
of the inhabitants who are relieved in the way just described; in
Paris,[4219] out of 685,000 rentals, 625,000, in other terms twelve out
of thirteen lodgings, are exempt, wholly or in part, from the personal
tax, the principal and "additional centimes." On each franc of this
principal there are 96 of these superadded centimes for the benefit of
the town and department and because the department and the town expend
a good deal, and because receipts are essential for the settlement of
these accounts, this or that sum is noted beforehand in every chapter of
receipts, and the main thing now is to have this paid in, and it must
be paid by somebody; it matters little whether the peasants are few or
numerous; if among thirteen taxable persons there is only one that pays,
so much the worse for him, for he must pay for himself and the other
twelve. Such is the case in Paris, which accounts for the "additional
centimes" here being so numerous,[4220] owing to there being less than
60,000 rentals for the acquittance of the entire tax, and, besides
paying their own debt, they must discharge the indebtedness of 625,000
other rentals, the tax on which is reduced or null.--Frequently, before
the Revolution, some rich convent or philanthropic seignior would pay
the taxes of his poor neighbors out of his own pocket; willingly or not,
60,000 Parisians, more or less well lodged, now hand over the same sum,
bestow the same charity, on 625,000 thousand badly or only tolerably
lodged Parisians; among these 60,000 benefactors whom the exchequer
obliges to be benevolent, 34,800 who pay from 1000 to 3000 francs rent,
bestow, under this heading, a pretty large sum for charitable purposes,
while 14,800, who pay more than 3000 francs rent, pay a very large one.
Other branches of direct taxation, in the country as well as in
the city, present the same spectacle: it is always the rich or
the well-to-do taxpayers who, through their over-tax, more or less
completely relieve the poor or straitened taxpayers; it is always the
owners of large or small properties, those who pay heavy or average
licenses, the occupants of lodgings with more than five openings,[4221]
and whose locative value surpasses 1000 francs, who in local expenditure
pay besides their own dues the dues of others and, through their
additional centimes, almost entirely defray the expenses of the
department and commune.--This is nearly always the case in a local
society, except when it chances to possess an abundant income, arising
from productive real estate, and is able to provide for its wants
without taxing its members; apart from this rare exception, it is forced
to tax some in order to relieve others. In other words, the same as with
other enterprises, it manufactures and sells its product but, just the
reverse of other enterprises, it sells the product, an equal quantity
of the same product, that is to say, equal protection against the same
calamities, and the equal enjoyment of the same public highway, at
unequal prices, very dear to a few, moderately dear to many, at cost
price to a large number, and with a discount to the mass; to this last
class of consumers the discount goes on increasing like the emptiness
of their purse; to the last of all, extremely numerous, the goods are
delivered almost gratis, or even for nothing.
But to this inequality of prices may correspond the inequality of
rights, and compensation will come, the balance may be restored,
distributive justice may be applied, if, in the government of the
enterprise, the parts assigned are not equal, if each member sees his
portion of influence growing or diminishing along with the weight of his
charge, if the regulations, graduating authority according to the scale
of the levies, assigns few votes to those who pay the lowest quotas of
expense and receive alms, and many votes to those who give alms and pay
the largest quotas of the expenditure.
III. Equity in taxation.
Possible compensation in the other side of the scale.--What
the distribution of rights should be according to the
principle of distributive justice.--In every association of
stock-owners.--In local society confined to its natural
object.--In local society charged with supplementary
functions.--The local statue in England and Prussia.--The
exchange equitable when burdens are compensated by rights.
Such is the rule in every association of interests, even in stock
companies in which the distribution of charges allows of no favor or
disfavor to any associate. It must be noted that, in these companies,
co-operation is not compulsory, but voluntary; the associates are not,
as in the local society, conscripts enlisted under the constraint of
physical solidarity, but subscribers bound together under the impulsion
of a deliberate preference, each remaining in its of his own free will
just as he entered it; if he wishes to leave it he has only to sell his
stock; the fact of his keeping this confirms his subscription, and, thus
holding on to it, he daily subscribes anew to the statute. Here, then,
is a perfectly free association; its is accordingly perfectly equitable,
and its statute serves as a model for others.
Now this statute always makes a distinction between the small and the
large stockholders; it always attributes a greater share of authority
and influence to those who share most largely in the risks and expenses;
in principle, the number of votes in confers on each associate is
proportionate to the number of shares of which he is the owner or
bearer.--All the stronger is the reason why this principle should be
embodied in the statutes of a society which, like the local community,
diminishes the burden of the small taxpayer through its reductions,
and increases by its extra taxation the burden of the large or average
taxpayer; when the appointment of managers is handed over to universal
suffrage, counted by heads, the large and average taxpayers are
defrauded of their dues and deprived of their rights, more so by far and
more deeply wronged than the bearer or owner of a thousand shares in an
omnibus or gas company if, on voting at a meeting of stockholders, his
vote did not count for more than that of the owner or bearer of a single
share.--
How is it then when a local society adds to its natural and unavoidable
purpose an optional and supplementary purpose;
* when, increasing its load, it undertakes to defray the cost of public
charity and of primary education;
* when, to support this additional cost, it multiplies the additional
centimes;
* when the large or average taxpayer pays alone, or nearly alone, for
this benevolent work by which he does not benefit;
* when the small taxpayer pays nothing, or next to nothing, to this
benevolent work by which he does benefit;
* when, in voting for the expense thus apportioned, each taxpayer,
whatever the amount of his contribution, has one vote and only one?
In this case, powers, benefits, reductions, and exemptions, all the
advantages are on one side, that of the poor and half-poor forming the
majority and who if not restrained from above, will persistently abuse
their numerical force to augment their advantages, at the increasing
expense of the rich or well-do-do minority. In the future, in the local
society, the average or large taxpayer is no longer an associate but a
victim; were he free to choose he would not enter into it; he would like
to go away and establish himself elsewhere; but were he to enter
others, near or remote, his condition would be no better. He remains,
accordingly, where he is, physically present, but absent in feeling;
he takes no part in deliberate meetings; his zeal has died out; he
withholds from public affairs that surplus of vigilant attention, that
spontaneous and ready collaboration which he would have contributed
gratis; he lets matters go along without him, just as it happens;
he remains there just what he is, a workable, taxable individual in
capricious hands, in short, a passive subject who gives and has become
resigned.--For this reason, in countries where an encroaching democracy
has not yet abolished or perverted the notion of equity, the local
statute applies the fundamental rule of an equitable exchange; it lays
down the principle that
he who pays commands, and in proportion to the sum he pays.[4222]
In England, a surplus of votes is awarded to those most heavily taxed,
even six votes to one voter; in Prussia, local taxation is divided into
thirds, and, accordingly, the taxpayers into three groups, the first one
composed of heavy taxpayers, few in number, and who pay the first third,
the second composed of average taxpayers, average in number, and who pay
the second third, and the third composed of the great number of small
taxpayers, who pay the last third.[4223] To each of these groups is
assigned the same number of suffrages in the commune election, or the
same number of representatives in the commune representation. Through
this approximate balance of legal burdens and of legal rights, the
two sides of the scales are nearly level, the level which distributive
justice demands, and the level which the state, special interpreter,
sole arbiter and universal minister of distributive justice, should
establish when, in the local community, it imposes, rectifies, or
maintains the articles in accordance with which it derives its income
and governs.
IV. On unlimited universal suffrage.
How unlimited universal suffrage found its way into local
society.--Object and mode of the French legislator.
If the government, in France, does just the opposite, it is at the
height of a violent and sudden revolution, forced by the party in power
and by popular prejudice, through deductive reasoning, and through
contagion. According to revolutionary and French usage, the legislator
was bound to institute uniformity and to make things symmetrical;
having placed universal suffrage in political society, he was likewise
determined to place it in local society. He had been ordered to apply an
abstract principle, that is to say, to legislate according to a summary,
superficial, and verbal notion which, purposely curtailed and simplified
to excess, did not correspond with its aim. He obeyed and did nothing
more; he made no effort outside of his instructions. He did not propose
to himself to restore local society to its members, to revive it, to
make it a living body, capable of spontaneous, co-ordinate, voluntary
action, and, to this end, provided with indispensable organs. He did
not even take the trouble to imagine, how it really is, I mean by
this, complex and diverse and inversely to legislators before 1789,
and adversely to legislators before and after 1789 outside of France,
against all the teachings of experience, against the evidence of nature,
he refused to recognize the fact that, in France, mankind are of two
species, the people of the towns and the people of the country, and
that, therefore, there are two types of local society, the urban
commune and the rural commune. He was not disposed to take this capital
difference into consideration; he issued decrees for the Frenchman in
general, for the citizen in himself, for fictive men, so reduced that
the statute which suits them can nowhere suit the actual and complete
man. At one stroke, the legislative shears cut out of the same stuff,
according to the same pattern, thirty-six thousand examples of the same
coat, one coat indifferently for every commune, whatever its shape,
a coat too small for the city and too large for the village,
disproportionate in both cases, and useless beforehand, because it
could not fit very large bodies, nor very small ones. Nevertheless, once
dispatched from Paris, people had to put the coat on and wear it;
it must answer for good or for ill, each donning his own for lack of
another better adjusted; hence the strangest attitudes for each, and, in
the long run, a combination of consequences which neither governors nor
the governed had foreseen.
V. Rural or urban communes.
No distinction between the rural and the urban commune.
--Effects of the law on the rural commune.--Disproportion
between the intelligence of its elected representatives and
the work imposed upon them.--The mayor and the municipal
council.--Lack of qualified members.--The secretary of the
mayoralty.--The chief or under chief of the prefectorial
bureau.
Let us consider these results in turn in the small and in the great
communes; clear enough and distinct at the two extremities of the scale,
they blend into each other at intermediate degrees, because here
they combine together, but in different proportions, according as the
commune, higher or lower in the scale, comes nearer to the village or
to the city.--On this territory, too, subdivided since 1789, and, so to
say, crumbled to pieces by the Constituent Assembly, the small communes
are enormous in number; among the 36,000, more than 27,000 have less
than 1000 inhabitants, and of these, more than 16,000 have less than 500
inhabitants.[4224] Whoever has traveled over France, or lived in this
country, sees at once what sort of men compose such purely rural groups;
he has only to recall physiognomies and attitudes to know to what extent
in these rude brains, rendered torpid by the routine of manual labor and
oppressed by the cares of daily life, how narrow and obstructed are
the inlets to the mind; how limited is their information in the way of
facts; how, in the way of ideas, the acquisition of them is slow; what
hereditary distrust separates the illiterate mass from the lettered
class; what an almost insurmountable wall the difference of education,
of habits, and of manners interposes in France between the blouse
and the dress-coat; why, if each commune contains a few cultivated
individuals and a few notable proprietors, universal suffrage sets them
aside, or at least does not seek them out for the municipal council or
the mayoralty.--Before 1830, when the prefect appointed the municipal
councilors and the mayor, these were always on hand; under the monarchy
of July and a limited suffrage, they were still on hand, at least for
the most part; under the second Empire, whatever the elected municipal
council might be, the mayor, who was appointed by the prefect, and even
outside of this council, might be one of the least ignorant and least
stupid even in the commune. At the present day (1889), it is only
accidentally and by chance that a noble or bourgeois, in a few provinces
and in certain communes, may become mayor or municipal councilor; it is,
however, essential that he should be born on the soil, long established
there, resident and popular. Everywhere else the numerical majority,
being sovereign, tends to select its candidates from among the average
people: in the village, he is a man of average rural intelligence, and,
mostly, in the village a municipal council which, as narrow-minded as
its electors, elects a mayor equally as narrow-minded as itself
Such are, from now on, the representatives and directors of communal
interests; except when they themselves are affected by personal
interests to which they are sensitive, their inertia is only equaled by
their incapacity[4225]
Four times a year a bundle of elaborately drawn papers, prepared by
the prefecture, are submitted to these innately blind paralytics, large
sheets divided into columns from top to bottom, with tabular headings
from right to left, and covered with printed texts and figures in
writing--details of receipts and expenses, general centimes, special
centimes, obligatory centimes, optional centimes, ordinary centimes,
extra centimes, with their sources and employment; preliminary
budget, final budget, corrected budget, along with legal references,
regulations, and decisions bearing on each article. In short, a
methodical table as specific as possible and highly instructive to a
jurist or accountant, but perfect jargon to peasants, most of whom can
scarcely write their name and who, on Sundays, are seen standing before
the advertisement board[4226] trying to spell out the Journal Officiel,
whose abstract phrases, beyond their reach, pass over their heads in
aerial and transient flight, like some confused rustling of vague and
unknown forms. To guide them in political life, much more difficult than
in private life, they require a similar guide to the one they take in
the difficult matters of their individual life, a legal or business
adviser, one that is qualified and competent, able to understand the
prefecture documents, sitting alongside of them to explain their budget,
rights and limits of their rights, the financial resources, legal
expedients, and consequences of a law; one who can arrange their
debates, make up their accounts, watch daily files of bills, attend to
their business at the county town, throughout the entire series of
legal formalities and attendance on the bureaus,--in short, some
trusty person, familiar with technicalities, who they might choose to
select.--Such a person was found in Savoy, before the annexation to
France, a notary or lawyer who, practicing in the neighborhood or at the
principal town, and with five or six communes for clients, visited them
in turn, helped them with his knowledge and intelligence, attended their
meetings and, besides, served them as scribe, like the present secretary
of the mayoralty, for about the same pay, amounting in all to about the
same total of fees or salaries.[4227]--At the present time, there is
nobody in the municipal council to advise and give information to its
members; the schoolmaster is their secretary, and he cannot be, and
should not be, other than a scribe. He reads in a monotonous tone of
voice the long financial enigma which French public book-keeping, too
perfect, offers to their divination, and which nobody, save one who is
educated to it, can clearly comprehend until after weeks of study. They
listen all agog. Some, adjusting their spectacles, try to pick out among
so many articles the one they want, the amount of taxes they have
to pay. The sum is too large, the assessments are excessive; it is
important that the number of additional centimes should be reduced, and
therefore that less money should be expended. Hence, if there is any
special item of expense which can be got rid of by a refusal, they set
it aside by voting No, until some new law or decree from above obliges
them to say Yes. But, as things go, nearly all the expenses designated
on the paper are obligatory; willingly or not, these must be met, and
there is no way to pay them outside of the additional centimes; however
numerous these are, vote them they must and sanction the centimes
inscribed. They accordingly affix their signatures, not with trust but
with mistrust, with resignation, and out of pure necessity. Abandoned
to their natural ignorance, the twenty-seven thousand petty municipal
councilors of the country are no more passive, more inert, more
constrained than ever; deprived of the light which, formerly, the choice
of the prefect or a restricted suffrage could still throw into the
darkness around them, there remains to them only one safe tutor
or conductor; and this final guide is the official of the bureaus,
especially this or that old, permanent chief, or under clerk, who is
perfectly familiar with his files of papers. With about four hundred
municipal councils to lead, one may imagine what he will do with them:
nothing except to drive them like a flock of sheep into a pen of printed
regulations, or urge them on mechanically, in lots, according to his
instructions, he himself being as automatic and as much in a rut as they
are.
VI. The larger Communes.
Effects of the law on the urban commune.--Disproportion
between the administrative capacity of its elected
representatives and the work imposed on them.--Lack of a
special and permanent manager.--The municipal council and
the mayor.--The general council and the intermediary
committee.--The prefect.--His dominant rule.--His obligatory
concessions.--His principal aim.--Bargains between the
central authority and the local Jacobins.--Effect on this on
local government, on the officials, and in local finances.
Let us now look at the other side of the scale, on the side of the large
urban communes, of which there are 223, with above 10,000 inhabitants,
90 of these above 20,000 inhabitants, 9 of the latter above 100,000
inhabitants, and Paris, which has 2,300,000.[4228] We see at the first
glance cast upon an average specimen of these human anthills, a town
containing from 40,000 to 50,000 souls, how vast and complex the
collective undertaking becomes, how many principal and accessory
services the communal society must co-ordinate and unite together in
order to secure to its members the advantages of public roads and insure
their protection against spreading calamities:
* Maintenance and repairs of these roads, the straightening, laying-out,
paving, and drainage, the constructions and expense for sewers, quays,
and rivers, and often for a commercial harbor;
* the negotiations and arrangements with departments and with the state
for this or that harbor, canal, dike, or insane asylum; the contracts
with cab, omnibus, and tramway companies and with telephone and
house-lighting companies; the street-lighting, artesian wells and
aqueducts;
* the city police, supervision and rules for using public highways,
and orders and agents for preventing men from injuring each other when
collected together in large assemblies in the streets, in the markets,
at the theater, in any public place, whether coffee-houses or taverns;
* the firemen and machinery for conflagrations; the sanitary measures
against contagion, and precautions, long beforehand to insure hygiene
during epidemics;
* and, as extra burdens and abuses, the establishment, direction and
support of primary schools, colleges, public lectures, libraries,
theaters, hospitals, and other institutions which should be supported
and governed by different associations; at the very least, the
appropriations to these establishments and therefore a more or less
legitimate and more or less imperative intervention in their internal
management.
Such are the great undertakings which form a whole, which bear alike on
the present, past, and future budget of the commune, and which, as so
many distinct branches of every considerable enterprise, require, for
proper execution, to have their continuity and connection always present
in the thoughtful and directing mind which has them in charge.[4229]
Experience shows that, in the great industrial or financial companies,
in the Bank of France, in the Crédit Lyonnais, and in the insurance,
navigation, and railroad companies, the best way to accomplish this end
is a permanent manager or director, always present, engaged or accepted
by the administrative board on understood conditions, a special, tried
man who, sure of his place for a long period, and with a reputation to
maintain, gives his whole time, faculties, and zeal to the work,
and who, alone, possessing at every moment a coherent and detailed
conception of the entire undertaking, can alone give it the proper
stimulus, and bring to bear the most economical and the most perfect
practical improvements. Such is also the municipal administration in
the Prussian towns on the Rhine. Then, in Bonn, for instance,[4230] the
municipal council, elected by the inhabitants "goes in quest" of some
eminent specialist whose ability is well known. It must be noted that
he is taken wherever he can be found, outside the city, in some remote
province; they bargain with him, the same as with some famous musician,
for the management of a series of concerts. Under the title of
burgomaster, with a salary of 10,000 francs per annum, he becomes for
twelve years the director of all municipal services, leader of the
civic orchestra, solely entrusted with executive power, wielding the
magisterial baton which the various instruments obey, many of these
being salaried functionaries and others benevolent amateurs,[4231]
all in harmony and through him, because they know that he is watchful,
competent, and top quality, constantly occupied with am overall view,
responsible, and in his own interest, as a point of honor, wholly
devoted to his work which is likewise their work, that is to say, to the
complete success of the concert.
Nothing in a French town corresponds to this admirable type of a
municipal institution. Here, also, and to a much greater extent in the
village, the effect of universal suffrage has been to discredit the true
notables and to incite the abdication or insure the exclusion of men
who, by their education, the large proportion of the taxes they pay,
and still greater influence or production on labor and on business, are
social authorities, and who should become legal authorities. In every
country where conditions are unequal, the preponderance of a numerical
majority necessarily ends in the nearly general abstention or almost
certain defeat of the candidates most deserving of election. But here
the case is different; the elected, being towns-people (citadins) and
not rural, are not of the species as in the village. They read a daily
newspaper, and believe that they understand not only local matters but
all subjects of national and general importance, that is to say, high
level economy, philosophy and law; somewhat resembling the schoolmaster
who, being familiar with the rules of arithmetic, thinks that he can
teach the differential calculus, and the theory of functions. At
any rate, they talk loud and argue on every subject with confidence,
according to Jacobin traditions, being, indeed, so many budding
Jacobins. They are the heirs and successors of the old sectarians,
issuing from the same stock and of the same stamp, a few in good faith,
but mainly narrow-minded, excited, and bewildered by the smoke of the
glittering generalities they utter. Most of them are mere politicians,
charlatans, and intriguers, third-class lawyers and doctors, literary
failures, semi-educated stump-speakers, bar-room, club, or clique
orators, and vulgar climbers. Left behind in private careers, in which
one is closely watched and accepted for what he is worth, they launch
out on a public career because, in this business, popular suffrage
at once ignorant, indifferent, is a badly informed, prejudiced and
passionate judge and prefers a moralist of easy conscience, instead of
demanding unsullied integrity and proven competency. Nothing more is
demanded from candidates but witty speech-making, assertiveness and
showing off in public, gross flattery, a display of enthusiasm and
promises to place the power about to be conferred on them by the people
in the hands of those who will serve its antipathies and prejudices.
Thus introduced into the municipal council, they constitute its majority
and appoint a mayor who is their figurehead or creature, now the bold
leader and again the docile instrument of their spite, their favors, and
their headlong action, of their blunders and presumption, and of their
meddlesome disposition and encroachments.--In the department, the
council general, also elected by universal suffrage, also bears the
marks of its origin; its quality, without falling so low, still descends
in a certain degree, and through changes which keep on increasing:
politicians install themselves there and make use of their place as
a stepping-stone to mount higher; it also, with larger powers and
prolonged during its vacations by its committee, is tempted to regard
itself as the legitimate sovereign of the extensive and scattered
community which it represents.--Thus recruited and composed, enlarged
and deteriorated, the local authorities become difficult to manage, and
from now on, to carry on the administration, the prefect must come to
some understanding with them.
VII. Local society in 1880.
Present state of local society.--Considered as an organism,
it is stillborn.--Considered as a mechanism, it gets out of
order.--Two successive and false conceptions of local
government.--In theory, one excludes the other.--
Practically, their union ends in the actual system.--Powers
of the prefect.--Restrictions on these through subsequent
changes.--Give and take.--Bargaining.--Supported by the
government and cost to the State.
Before 1870, when he appointed the mayors and when the council general
held its sessions only fifteen days in the year, the prefect was
almost omnipotent; still, at the present day, (1889), "his powers are
immense,"[4232] and his power remains preponderant. He has the right
to suspend the municipal council and the mayor, and to propose their
dismissal to the head of the state. Without resorting to this extremity,
he holds them with a strong hand, and always uplifted over the commune,
for he can veto the acts of the municipal police and of the road
committee, annul the regulations of the mayor, and, through a skillful
use of his prerogative, impose his own. He holds in hand, removes,
appoints or helps appoint, not alone the clerks in his office, but
likewise every kind and degree of clerk who, outside his office, serves
the commune or department,[4233] from the archivist, keeper of
the museum, architect, director, and teachers of the municipal
drawing-schools, from the directors and collectors of charity
establishments, directors and accountants of almshouses, doctors of the
mineral springs, doctors and accountants of the insane asylums and for
epidemics, head-overseers of octrois, wolf-bounty guards, commissioners
of the urban police, inspectors of weights and measures, town
collectors, whose receipts do not exceed thirty thousand francs, down
to and comprising the lowest employees, such as forest guards of the
department and commune, lock-keepers and navigation guards, overseers
of the quays and of commercial ports, toll-gatherers on bridges and
highways, field-guards of the smallest village, policemen posted on
the corner of a street, and stone-breakers on the public highway. When
things and not persons are concerned, it is he, again, who, in every
project, enterprise, or proceeding, is charged with the preliminary
examination and final execution of it, who proposes the department
budget and presents it, regularly drawn up, to the council general, who
draws up the communal budget and presents that to the municipal council,
and who, after the council general or municipal council have voted on
it, remains on the spot the sole executor, director, and master of the
operation to which they have assented. Their total, effective part in
this operation is very insignificant, it being reduced to a bare act of
the will; in reaching a vote they have had in their hands scarcely any
other documents than those furnished and arranged by him; in gradually
reaching their decision step by step, they have had no help but his,
that of an independent collaborator who, governed by his own views
and interests, never becomes the mere instrument. They lack for their
decision direct, personal, and full information, and, beyond this,
complete, efficient power; it is simply a dry Yes, interposed between
insufficient resources, or else cut off, and the fruit of which is
abortive or only half ripens. The persistent will of the prefect alone,
informed, and who acts, must and does generally prevail against this
ill-supported and ill-furnished will. At bottom, and as he stands, he
is, in his mental and official capacity, always the prefect of the year
VIII.
Nevertheless, after the laws lately passed, his hands are not so free.
The competency of local assemblies is extended and comprises not only
new cases but, again, of a new species, while the number of their
executive decisions has increased five-fold. The municipal council,
instead of holding one session a year, holds four, and of longer
duration. The council general, instead of one session a year, holds two,
and maintains itself in the interim by its delegation which meets every
month. With these increased authorities and generally present, the
prefect has to reckon, and what is still more serious, he must reckon
with local opinion; he can no longer rule with closed doors; the
proceedings of the municipal council, the smallest one, are duly posted;
in the towns, they are published and commented on by the newspapers
of the locality; the general council furnishes reports of its
deliberations.--Thus, behind elected powers, and weighing with these on
the same side of the scales, here is a new power, opinion, as this grows
in a country leveled by equalized centralization, in heaving or stagnant
crowd of disintegrated individuals lacking any spontaneous, central,
rallying point, and who, failing natural leaders, simply push and
jostle each other or stand still, each according to personal, blind, and
haphazard impressions--a hasty, improvident, inconsistent, superficial
opinion, caught on the wing, based on vague rumors, on four or
five minutes of attention given each week, and chiefly to big words
imperfectly understood, two or three sonorous, commonplace phrases, of
which the listeners fail to catch the sense, but the sound which, by din
of frequent repetition, becomes for them a recognized signal, the blast
of a horn or a shrieking whistle which assembles the herd and arrests or
drives it on. No opposition can make head against this herd as it
rushes along in too compact and too heavy masses.--The prefect, on the
contrary, is obliged to cajole it, yield to it, and satisfy it; for
under the system of universal suffrage, this same herd, besides
local representatives, elects the central powers, the deputies, the
government; and when the government sends a prefect from Paris into the
provinces, it is after the fashion of a large commercial establishment,
with a view to keep and increase the number of its customers, to stay
there, maintain its credit, and act permanently as its traveling-clerk,
or, in other terms, as its electoral agent, and, still more precisely,
as the campaign manager of coming elections for the dominant party and
for the ministers in office who have commissioned and appointed him,
and who, from top to bottom, constantly stimulate him to hold on to
the voters already secured and to gain fresh ones.--Undoubtedly, the
interests of the state, department, and commune must be seriously
considered, but, first and above all, he is the recruiting officer
for voters. By virtue of this position and on this he treats with
the council general and the standing committee, with the municipal
councilors and mayors, with influential electors, but especially
with the small active committee which, in each commune, supports the
prevailing policy and offers its zeal to the government.
Give and take. These indispensable auxiliaries must obtain nearly all
they ask for, and they ask a great deal. Instinctively, as well as by
doctrine and tradition, the Jacobins are exacting, disposed to regard
themselves as the representatives of the real and the ideal people, that
is to say, as sovereigns by right, above the law, entitled to make it
and therefore to unmake it, or, at least, strain it and interpret it as
they please. Always in the general council, in the municipal council,
and in the mayoralty, they are tempted to usurp it; the prefect has as
much as he can do to keep them within the local bounds, to keep them
from meddling with state matters and the general policy; he is often
obliged to accept their lack of consideration, to be patient with them,
to talk to them mildly; for they talk and want the administration to
reckon with them as a clerk with his master; if they vote money for any
service it is on condition that they take part in the use of the funds
and in the details of the service, in the choice of contractors and in
hiring the workmen; on condition that their authority be extended and
their hands applied to the consecutive execution of what does not
belong to them but which belongs to the prefect.[4234] Bargaining,
consequently, goes on between them incessantly and they come to
terms.--The prefect, it must be noted, who is bound to pay, can do so
without violating the letter of the law. The stern page on which the
legislator has printed his imperative text is always provided with an
ample margin where the administrator, charged with its execution, can
write down the decisions that he is free to make. In relation to each
departmental or communal affair, the prefect can with his own hand write
out what suits him on the white margin, which, as we have already seen,
is ample enough; but the margin at his disposition is wider still and
continues, beyond anything we have seen, on other pages; he is chargé
d'affaires not only of the department and commune, but again of the
State. Titular conductor or overseer of all general services, he is, in
his circumscription, head inquisitor of the republican faith[4235],
even in relation to private life and inner sentiments, the responsible
director of orthodox or heretical acts or opinions, which are laudable
or blamable in the innumerably army of functionaries by which the
central state now undertakes the complete mastery of human life, the
twenty distinct regiments of its vast hierarchy--with the staff of the
clergy, of the magistracy, of the preventive and repressive police, of
the customs; with the officials of bridges and highways, forest domains,
stock-breeding establishments, postal and telegraph departments, tobacco
and other monopolies; with those of every national enterprise which
ought to be private, Sévres and Gobelins, deaf and dumb and blind
asylums, and every auxiliary and special workshop for war and navigation
purposes, which the state supports and manages. I pass some of them and
all too many. Only remark this, that the indulgence or severity of
the prefecture in the way of fiscal violations or irregularities is
an advantage or danger of the highest importance to 377,000 dealers in
wines and liquors; that an accusation brought before and admitted in
the prefecture may deprive 38,000 clergymen of their bread,[4236] 43,000
letter-carriers and telegraph messengers, 45,000 sellers of tobacco and
collecting-clerks, 75,000 stone-breakers, and 120,000 male and female
teachers;[4237] directly or indirectly, the good or ill favor of the
prefecture is of consequence, since recent military laws, to all adults
between 20 and 45 years, and, since recent school laws, to all children
between 6 and 13 years of age. According to these figures, which go on
increasing from year to, calculate the breadth of the margin on which,
alongside of the legal text which states the law for persons and things
in general, the prefect in his turn gives the law for persons and things
in particular. On this margin, which belongs to him, he writes what he
pleases, at one time permissions and favors, exemptions, dispensations,
leaves of absence, relief of taxes or discharges, help and subventions,
preferences and gratuities, appointments and promotions, and at another
time disgrace, hardship, legal proceedings, dismissals, and special
favors. To guide his hand in each case, that is to say, to spread all
the favors on one side and all the disfavors on the other, he has, among
the local Jacobins, special informers and important applicants. If not
restrained by a very strong sentiment of distributive justice and very
great solicitude for the public good he can hardly resist them, and in
general when he takes up his pen it is to write under the dictation of
his Jacobin collaborators.
DEMOCRACY IN FRANCE IN 1889, SUMMARY.
Thus has the institution of the year VIII deviated (The France of the
revolution corrected and decreed by Napoleon), no longer attaining its
object. The prefects, formerly appointed to a department, like a
pacier of the Middle Ages, imposed on it from above, ignorant of local
passions, independent, qualified and fitted for the office, was, during
fifty years, in general, able to remain the impartial minister of the
law and of equity, maintaining the rights of each, and exacting from
each his due, without heeding opinions and without respect to persons.
Now he is obliged to become an accomplice of the ruling faction, govern
for the advantage of some to the detriment of others, and to put into
his scales, as a preponderating weight, every time he weighs judgment,
a consideration for persons and opinions. At the same time, the entire
administrative staff in his hands, and under his eye, deteriorates; each
year, on the recommendation of a senator or deputy, he adds to it,
or sees, intruders there, whose previous services are null, feeble in
capacity and of weak integrity who do poor work or none at all, and who,
to hold their post or get promoted, count not on their merits but on
their sponsors. The rest, able and faithful functionaries of the old
school, who are poor and to whom no path is open, become weary and lose
their energy; they are no longer even certain of keeping their place; if
they stay, it is for the dispatch of current business and because they
cannot be dispensed with; perhaps to-morrow, however, they will cease to
be considered indispensable; some political denunciation, or to give a
political favorite a place, will put them by anticipation on the retired
list. From now on they have two powers to consult, one, legitimate and
natural, the authority of their administrative chiefs, and the other
illegitimate and parasite, consisting of democratic influence from both
above and below. For them, as for the prefect, public welfare descends
to the second rank and the electoral interest mounts upward to the
first rank. With them as with him self-respect, professional honor,
the conscientious performance of duty, reciprocal loyalty go down;
discipline relaxes, punctuality falters, and, as the saying goes, the
great administrative edifice is no longer a well-kept house, but a
barracks.
Naturally, under the democratic regime, the maintenance and service
of this house becomes more and more costly;[4238] for, owing to the
additional centimes, it is the rich and well-to-do minority which
defrays the larger portion of the expense. Owing to universal suffrage,
the poor or half-poor majority which dominate the elections so that the
large majority with impunity can overtax the minority. At Paris, the
parliament and the government, elected by this numerical majority,
contrive demands in its behalf, force expenditure, augment public works,
schools, endowments, gratuities, prizes, a multiplication of offices to
increase the number of their clients, while it never tires in decreeing,
in the name of principles, works for show, theatrical, ruinous, and
dangerous, the cost of which they do not care to know, and of which
the social import escapes them. Democracy, above as well as below, is
short-sighted; it seizes whatever food it comes across, like an animal,
with open jaws and head down; it refuses to anticipate and to calculate;
it burdens the future and wastes every fortune it undertakes to manage,
not alone that of the central state, but, again, those of all local
societies. Up to the advent of universal suffrage, the administrators
appointed above or elected below, in the department or in the commune,
kept tight hold of the purse-strings; since 1848, especially since
1870, and still later, since the passage of the laws of 1882, which, in
suppressing the obligatory consent of the heaviest taxed, let slip
the last of these strings, this purse, wide open, is emptied in the
street.--In 1851,[4239] the departments, all together, expended 97
millions; in 1869, 192 millions; in 1881, 314 millions. In 1836, the
communes, all together, save Paris, expended 117 millions, in 1862, 450
millions, in 1877, 676 millions. If we examine the receipts covering
this expenditure, we find that the additional centimes which supplied
the local budgets, in 1820, with 80 millions, and, in 1850, with 131
millions, supplied them, in 1870, with 249 millions, in 1880, with
318 millions, and, in 1887, with 364 millions. The annual increase,
therefore, of these superadded centimes to the principal of the direct
taxes is enormous, and finally ends in an overflow. In 1874,[4240] there
were already 24 departments in which the sum of additional centimes
reached or surpassed the sum of the principal. "In a very few years,"
says an eminent economist,[4241] "it is probable that, for nearly all
of the departments," the overcharge will be similar. Already, for a long
time, in the total of personal taxation,[4242] the local budgets
raised more than the state, and, in 1888, the principal of the tax real
property, 183 millions, is less than the total of centimes joined with
it, 196 millions. Coming generations are burdened over and beyond the
present generation, while the sum of loans constantly increases, like
that of taxation. The indebted communes, except Paris, owed, altogether,
in 1868, 524 millions francs[4243], in 1871, 711 millions, and in 1878,
1322 millions francs.[4244] Paris, in 1868, already owed 1326 millions,
March 30, 1878, it owed 1988 millions. In this same Paris, the annual
contribution of each inhabitant for local expenses was, at the end
of the first Empire, in 1813, 37 francs per head, at the end of the
Restoration,[4245] francs, after the July monarchy, in 1848, 43 francs,
and, at the end of the second Empire, in 1869, 94 francs. In 1887,45 it
is 110 francs per head. [4246]
VIII. Final result in a tendency to bankruptcy.
Such, in brief, is the history of local society from 1789 down to 1889.
After the philosophic demolition of the Revolution and the practical
constructions of the Consulate, it could no longer be a small patrimony,
something to take pride in, an object of affection and devotion to its
inhabitants. The departments and communes have become more or less vast
lodging-houses, all built on the same plan and managed according to the
same regulations one as passable as the other, with apartments in them
which, more or less good, are more or less dear, but at rates which,
higher or lower, are fixed at a uniform tariff over the entire
territory, so that the 36,000 communal buildings and the 86 department
hotels are about equal, it making but little difference whether one
lodges in the latter rather than in the former. The permanent taxpayers
of both sexes who have made these premises their home, have not obtained
recognition for what they are, invincibly and by nature, a syndicate of
neighbors, an involuntary, obligatory and private association, in which
physical solidarity engenders moral solidarity, a natural, limited
society whose members own the building in common, and each possesses a
property right more or less great, according to the greater or lesser
contribution he makes to the expenses of the establishment. Up to this
time no room has yet been found, either in the law or in minds, for this
very plain truth; its place is taken and occupied in advance by the
two errors which, in turn or both at once, have led the legislator and
opinion astray.
Taking things as a whole, it is admitted up to 1830 that the legitimate
proprietor of the local building is the central state, that it may
install its delegate therein, the prefect, with full powers; that,
for better government, he consents to be instructed by the leading
interested and most capable parties on the spot; that he should fix the
petty rights he concedes to them within the narrowest limits; that he
should appoint them; that, if he calls them together for consultation,
it is from time to time and generally for form's sake, to add the
authority of their assent to the authority of his omnipotence, on the
implied condition that he shall not give heed to their objections if he
does not like them, and not follow their advice if he does not choose to
accept it.--Taking things as a whole, it is admitted that, since
1848, the legitimate proprietors of the building are its adult male
inhabitants, counted by heads, all equal and all with an equal part in
the common property, comprising those who contribute nothing or nearly
nothing to the common expenditure of the house, the numerous body of
semi-poor who lodge in it at half price, and the not less numerous body
to whom administrative charity furnishes house comforts, shelter,
light, and frequently provisions, gratuitously.--Between both these
contradictory and false conceptions, between the prefect of the year
VIII, and the democracy of 1792, a compromise has been effected;
undoubtedly, the prefect, sent from Paris, is and remains the titular
director, the active and responsible manager of the departmental or
communal building; but, in his management of it he is bound to keep
in view the coming elections, and in such a way as will maintain
the parliamentary majority in the seats they occupy in parliament;
consequently, he must conciliate the local leaders of universal
suffrage, rule with their help, put up with the intrusion of their bias
and cupidity, take their advice daily, follow it often, even in
small matters, even in payments day by day of sums already voted, in
appointing an office-clerk, in the appointment of an unpaid underling,
who may some day or other take this clerk's place.[4247]--Hence the
spectacle before our eyes: a badly kept establishment in which profusion
and waste render each other worse and worse, where sinecures multiply
and where corruption enters in; a staff of officials becoming more
and more numerous and less and less serviceable, harassed between two
different authorities, obliged to possess or to simulate political
zeal and to neutralize an impartial law by partiality, and, besides
performing their regular duties, to do dirty work; in this staff, there
are two sorts of employees, the new-comers who are greedy and who,
through favor, get the best places, and the old ones who are patient and
pretend no more, but who suffer and grow disheartened; in the building
itself, there is great demolition and reconstruction, architectural
fronts in monumental style for parade and to excite attention, entirely
new decorative and extremely tiresome structures at extravagant cost;
consequently, loans and debts, heavier bills at the end of each year
for each occupant, low rents, but still high, for favorites in the
small rooms and garrets, and extravagant rents for the larger and more
sumptuous apartments; in sum, forced receipts which do not offset the
expenses; liabilities which exceed assets; a budget which shows only
a stable balance on paper,--in short, an establishment with which the
public is not content, and which is on the road to bankruptcy.
*****
[Footnote 4201: Laws of March 21, 1831, and July 18, 1837, June 22,
1833, and May 10, 1838. The municipal electors number about 2,250,000
and form the superior third of the adult masculine population; in the
choice of its notables and semi-notables, the law takes into account
not only wealth and direct taxation but likewise education and services
rendered to the public.--The department electors number about 200,000,
about as many as the political electors. The reporter observes that "an
almost complete analogy exists between the choice of a deputy and the
choice of a department councilor, and that it is natural to confide the
election to the same electoral body otherwise divided, since the object
is to afford representation to another order of interests."]
[Footnote 4202: Laws of July 3, 1848.]
[Footnote 4203: Laws of Aug. 12, 1876, March 28, 1882, and April 5,
1884; law of Aug. 10, 1871.]
[Footnote 4204: The prefect, who is directed and posted by the minister
of the Interior in Paris.]
[Footnote 4205: "The Revolution," vol. I., book VIII. (Laff. I. pp.
467-559.)]
[Footnote 4206: And in 1880 it certainly excluded the female side of
human nature. (SR.)]
[Footnote 4207: It must have been evident that nature gives to each
worker, hunter, farmer or fisherman in accordance with their competence
and industry. (SR.)]
[Footnote 4208: Construction of roads, canals, sewers, highways etc and
protection against calamities.]
[Footnote 4209: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "Traité de la science des
finances," 4th edition, I., p. 303: "The personal tax, levied only as
principal, oscillates between the minimum of 1 fr. 50 and the maximum of
4 fr. 50 per annum, according to the communes."--Ibid., 304: "In 1806
the personal tax produced in France about sixteen millions of francs, a
little less than 0 fr. 50 per head of the inhabitants."]
[Footnote 4210: Ibid., I., 367 (on the tax on doors and windows).
According to the population of the commune, this is from 0 fr. 30 to 1
fr. for each opening, from 0 fr. 45 to 1 fr. 50 for two openings, from
0 fr. 90 to 4 fr. 50 for three openings, from 1 fr. 60 to 6 fr. 40 for
four openings, and from 2 fr. 50 to 8 fr. 50 for five openings. The
first of these rates is applied to all communes of less than 5000 souls.
We see that the poor man, especially the poor peasant, is considered;
the tax on him is progressive in an inverse sense.]
[Footnote 4211: De Foville, "La France Economique" (1887), p.59: "Our
14,500 charity bureaux gave assistance in 1883 to 1,405,500 persons;....
as, in reality, the population of the communes aided (by them) is only
22,000,000, the proportion of the registered poor amounts to over six
per cent."]
[Footnote 4212: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "Essai sur la répartition des
richesses," p.174, et seq.--In 1851, the number of land-owners in France
was estimated at 7,800,000. Out of these, three millions were relieved
of the land tax, as indigent, and their quotas were considered as
irrecoverable.]
[Footnote 4213: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "Traité de la science des
finances," p.721.]
[Footnote 4214: De Foville, p.419. (In 1889.)]
[Footnote 4215: Cf ante, on the characteristics of indirect taxation.]
[Footnote 4216: Here it is the estimated rent, which stands to the real
rent as four to five; an estimated rent of 400 francs indicates a real
rent of 500 francs.]
[Footnote 4217: De Foville, p.57.]
[Footnote 4218: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu," Essai sur la répartition de
richesses," p. 174.]
[Footnote 4219: Ibid., p.209: In 1878, in Paris, 74,000 houses with
1,022,539 rentals, 337,587 being for trade and commerce, and 684,952
for dwelling purposes. Among the latter, 468,641 have a locative value
inferior to 300 francs a year; 74,360 are between 500 and 750 francs;
21,147 are between 750 and 1000 francs. All these lodgings are more or
less exempt from the personal tax: those between 1000 and 400 francs
pay it with a more or less great reduction: those under 400 francs pay
nothing. Above 1000 francs, we find 17,202 apartments from between 1000
and 1250 francs; 6198 from between 1250 and 1500 francs; 21,453 from
1500 to 3000 francs. These apartments are occupied by more or less
well-to-do people.--14,858 apartments above 3000 francs are occupied by
the richer or the wealthy class. Among the latter 9985 are from 3000 to
6000; 3040 are from 6000 to 10,000; 1443 are from 10,000 to 20,000; 421
are above 20,000 francs. These two latter categories are occupied by the
really opulent class.--According to the latest statistics, instead of
684,952 dwelling rentals there are 806,187, of which 727,419 are wholly
or partly free of the personal tax. ("Situation au 1ère Janvier, 1888,"
report by M. Lamouroux, conseiller-municipal.)]
[Footnote 4220: The following appropriations for 1889 are printed on my
tax-bill: "To the State, 51%.; to the Department, 21%; to the commune,
25%." On business permits: "To the State, 64%.; to the Department, 12%;
to the commune, 20%. The surplus of taxes is appropriated to the
benevolent fund and for remission of taxes."]
[Footnote 4221: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "Traité de la science des
finances," I., pp. 367-368: "In communes under 5000 inhabitants the
principal of the tax on doors and windows is, for houses with one
opening, 0 fr. 30 per annum; for those with four openings, 1 fr. 60."
Now, "a house with five openings pays nearly nine times as much as a
house with one opening." The small taxpayers are accordingly largely
relieved at the expense of those who pay heavy and average taxes, the
magnitude of this relief being appreciable by the following figures: In
1885, out of 8,975,166 houses, 248,352 had one opening, 1,827,104 two
openings, 1,624,516 three openings, and 1,165,902 four openings. More
than one-half of the houses, all of those belonging to the poor or
straitened, are thus relieved, while the other half, since the tax is an
impost, not a quota, but an apportionment, is overcharged as much.]
[Footnote 4222: One result of this principle is, that the poor who are
exempt from taxation or who are on the poor list have no vote, which is
the case in England and in Prussia.--Through another result of the same
principle, the law of May 15, 1818, in France, summoned the heaviest
taxpayers, in equal number with the members of the municipal council, to
deliberate with it every time that "a really urgent expenditure" obliged
the commune to raise extra additional centimes beyond the usual 0 fr.
05. "Thus," says Henrion de Pancey ("Du pouvoir municipal," p.109),
"the members of the municipal councils belong to the class of small
land-owners, at least in a large number of communes, voted the charges
without examination which only affected them insensibly."--This last
refuge of distributive justice was abolished by the law of April 5,
1882.]
[Footnote 4223: Max Leclerc, "Le Vie municipale en Prusse." (Extrait des
"Annales de l'Ecole libre des sciences politique," 1889, a study on the
town of Bonn.) At Bonn, which has a population of 35,810 inhabitants,
the first group is composed of 167 electors: the second, of 471; the
third, of 2607, each group elects 8 municipal councilors out of 24.]
[Footnote 4224: De Foville, "La France économique," p. 16 (census of
1881).--Number of communes, 36,097; number below 1000 inhabitants,
27,503; number below 500 inhabitants, 16,870.--What is stated applies
partly to the two following categories: 1st, communes from 1000 to
1500 inhabitants, 2982; 2nd, communes from 1500 to 2000 inhabitants,
1917.--All the communes below 2000 inhabitants are counted as rural in
the statistics of population, and they number 33,402.]
[Footnote 4225: See Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L'État moderne et ses
fonctions," p. 169. "The various groups of inhabitants, especially in
the country, do not know how to undertake or agree upon anything
of themselves. I have seen villages of two or three hundred people
belonging to a large scattered commune wait patiently for years and
humbly petition for aid in constructing an indispensable fountain, which
required only a contribution of 200 or 300 francs, 5 francs per head, to
put up. I have seen others possessing only one road on which to send off
their produce and unable to act in concert, when, with an outlay of
2000 francs, and 200 or 300 francs a year to keep it in order, it would
easily suffice for all their requirements. I speak of regions relatively
rich, much better off than the majority of communes in France."]
[Footnote 4226: In French villages, on one of the walls of a public
building on the square are notices of all kinds, of interest to the
inhabitants, and among these, in a frame behind a wire netting, the
latest copy of the government official newspaper, giving authentic
political items, those which it thinks best for the people to read.
(Tr.)]
[Footnote 4227: On the communal system in France, and on the reforms
which, following the example of other nations, might be introduced
into it, cf. Joseph Ferrand (formerly a prefect), "Les Institutions
administratives en France et à l'étranger"; Rudolph Gneist, "Les
Réformes administratives en Prusse accomplies par la legislation de
1872," (especially the institution of Amtsvorsteher, for the union of
communes or circumscriptions of about 1500 souls); the Duc de Broglie,
"Vues sur le gouvernement de la France" (especially on the reforms that
should be made in the administration of the commune and canton), p.
21.--"Deprive communal magistrates of their quality as government
agents; separate the two orders of functions; have the public
functionary whose duty it is to see that the laws are executed in
the communes, the execution of general laws and the decisions of the
superior authority carried out, placed at the county town."]
[Footnote 4228: De Foville, ibid., p. 16.--The remarks here made
apply to towns of the foregoing category (from 5000 to 10,000 souls),
numbering 312. A last category comprises towns from 2000 to 5000 souls,
numbering 2160, and forming the last class of urban populations;
these, through their mixed character, assimilate to the 1817 communes
containing from 1500 to 2000 inhabitants, forming the first category of
the rural populations.]
[Footnote 4229: Max Leclerc, "La Vie municipale en Prusse," p 17.--In
Prussia, this directing mind is called "the magistrate," as in our
northern and northeastern communes. In eastern Prussia, the "magistrate"
is a collective body; for example, at Berlin, it comprises 34 persons,
of which 17 are specialists, paid and engaged for twelve years, and
17 without pay. In western Prussia, the municipal management consists
generally of an individual, the burgomaster, salaried and engaged for
twelve years.]
[Footnote 4230: Max Leclerc, ibid., p.20.--"The present burgomaster in
Bonn was burgomaster at Münchens-Gladbach, before being called to Bonn.
The present burgomaster of Crefeld came from Silesia.... A lawyer, well
known for his works on public law, occupying a government position
at Magdeburg," was recently called "to the lucrative position of
burgomaster" in the town of Münster. At Bonn, a town of 30,000
inhabitants, "everything rests on his shoulders he exercises a great
many of the functions which, with us, belong to the prefect."]
[Footnote 4231: Max Leclerc, ibid., p. 25.--Alongside of the paid town
officers and the municipal councilors, there are special committees
composed of benevolent members and electors "either to administer
or superintend some branch of communal business, or to study some
particular question." "These committees, subject, moreover, in
all respects to the burgomaster, are elected by the municipal
council."--There are twelve of these in Bonn and over a hundred in
Berlin. This institution serves admirably for rendering those who
are well disposed useful, as well as for the development of local
patriotism, a practical sense and public spirit.]
[Footnote 4232: Aucoc, p. 283.]
[Footnote 4233: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L'administrateur locale en France
et en Angleterre," pp.26, 28, 92. (Decrees of March 25, 1852, and April
13, 1861.)]
[Footnote 4234: J. Ferrand, ibid., p. 169, 170 (Paris, 1879): "In many
cases, general tutelage and local tutelage are paralyzed.... Since
1870-1876 the mayors, to lessen the difficulties of their task, are
frequently forced to abandon any rightful authority; the prefects are
induced to tolerate, to approve of these infractions of the law....
For many years one cannot read the minutes of a session of the council
general or of the municipal council without finding numerous examples of
the illegality we report.... In another order of facts, for example in
that which relates to the official staff, do we not see every day agents
of the state, even conscientious, yield to the will of all-powerful
political notabilities and entirely abandon the interests of the
service?"--These abuses have largely increased within the past ten
years.]
[Footnote 4235: See "La République et les conservateurs," in the Revue
des Deux Mondes of March 1, 189?, p.108.--"I speak of this de visu
from experience, (SR.): I take my own arrondissement. It is
in one of the eastern departments, lately represented by radicals. This
time it was carried by a conservative. An attempt was first made to
annul the election, which had to be given up as the votes in dispute
were too many. Revenge was taken on the electors. Gendarmes, in the
communes, investigated the conduct of the curés, forest-guard, and
storekeeper. The hospital doctor, a conservative, was replaced by
an opportunist. The tax-comptroller, a man of the district, and of
suspicious zeal, was sent far into the west. Every functionary who, on
the even of the election, did not have a contrite look, was threatened
with dismissal. A road-surveyor was regarded as having been lukewarm,
and accordingly put on the retired list. There is no petty vexation that
was not resorted to, no insignificant person, whom they disdained to
strike. Stone breakers were denounced for saying that they ought not
to have their wages reduced. Sisters of charity, in a certain commune,
dispensed medicine to the poor; they were forbidden to do this, to annoy
the mayor living in Paris. The custodians of mortgages had an errand-boy
who was guilty of distributing, not voting-tickets, but family notices
(of a marriage) on the part of the new deputy; a few days after this, a
letter from the prefecture gave the custodian notice that the criminal
must be replaced in twenty-four hours. A notary, in a public meeting,
dared to interrupt the radical candidate; he was prosecuted in the court
for a violation of professional duties, and the judges of judiciary
reforms condemned him to three months 'suspension.' This took place,
"not in Languedoc, or in Provence, in the south among excited brains
where everything is allowable, but under the dull skies of Champagne.
And when I interrogate the conservatives of the West and the Center,
they reply: "We have seen many beside these, but is long since we have
ceased to be astonished!"]
[Footnote 4236: Ibid., p.105: "Each cantonal chief town has its office
of informers. The Minister of Public Worship has himself told that
on the first of January, 1890, there were 300 curés deprived of their
salary, about three or four times as many as on the first of January,
1889."]
[Footnote 4237: These figures are taken from the latest statistical
reports. Some of them are furnished by the chief or directors of special
services.]
[Footnote 4238: Taine could hardly have imagined how costly the modern
democracy would, 100 years later, become. How could he have imaged that
the "Human Rights" should become the right to live comfortably and well
at the expense of an ever more productive society.]
[Footnote 4239: De Foville, pp.412, 416, 425, 455; Paul Leroy-Beaulieu,
"Traité de la science des finances," I., p.717.]
[Footnote 4240: "Statistiques financières des communes en 1889":--3539
communes pay less than 15 common centimes; 2597 pay from 0 fr. 15 to 0
fr. 30; 9652 pay from 0 fr. 31 to 0 fr. 50; 11,095 from 0 fr. 51 to
1 franc, and 4248 over 1 franc.--Here this relates only to the common
centimes; to have the sum total of the additional local centimes of each
commune would require the addition of the department centimes, which the
statistics do not furnish.]
[Footnote 4241: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, ibid., I., pp.690, 717.]
[Footnote 4242: Ibid.: "If the personal tax were deducted from the
amount of personal and house tax combined we would find that the
assessment of the state in the product of the house tax, that is to say
the product of the tax on rentals, amounts to 41 or 42 millions, and
that the share of localities in the product of this tax surpasses that
of the state by 8 or 9 millions (Year 1877.)"]
[Footnote 4243: Between 1805 and 1900 the French franc was tied to the
gold standard. A 20 francs coin thus weighed 7,21 grams. Its price is
today in 1998 1933.--francs. Taine's figures have to be multiplied by
app. ten in order to compare with today's prices. No real comparison
can, however, be made since production per capita has multiplied by a
large factor and so have taxes.]
[Footnote 4244: "Situation financière des department et des communes,"
published in 1889 by the Minister of the Interior. Loans and
indebtedness of the departments at the end of the fiscal year in 1886,
630,066,102 francs. Loans and indebtedness of the communes Dec. 30,
1886, 3,020,450,528 francs.]
[Footnote 4245: De Foville, p.148; Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L'État moderne
et ses fonctions," p. 21.]
[Footnote 4246: During the 110 years since Taine wrote his somber
previsions the French have had to pay the same penalty as other ill
managed Democracies; Bankruptcies direct or indirect with galloping
inflation and enormous devaluations with as a consequence impoverishment
of naive depositors and credulous pension fund participants, wars for
which France was badly prepared with millions of dead and prisoners
and with occupation of France as a result. The culprits, the elected
politicians, have either died or anyhow lived out their lives
comfortably on the indexed retirements which the oligarchy generally
reserves for themselves. (SR.)]
[Footnote 4247: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L'Administration locale en France
et en Angleterre," p. 28. (Decrees of March 25, 1852, and April 13,
1861.) List of offices directly appointed by the prefect and on
the recommendation of the heads of the service, among others the
supernumeraries of telegraph lines and of the tax offices.]
End of The Modern Regime, Volume 1 [Napoleon]