At the beginning, an effort was made to put in practice the constitutional principle proposed by SieyÈs: Power in future, according the accepted formula, must come from above and confidence from below. To this end, in the year IX, the assembled citizens appointed one-tenth of their number, about 500,000 communal notables, and these, likewise assembled, appointed also one-tenth of their number, about 50,000 departmental notables. The government selected from this list the municipal councilors of each commune, and, from this second list, the general councilors of each department.—The machine, however, is clumsy, difficult to set going, still more difficult to manage, and too unreliable in its operation. According to the First Consul, it is an absurd system, "a childish piece of ideology; a great nation should not be organized in this way."4115 At bottom,4116 "he does not want notables accepted by the nation. In his system, he is to declare who the notables of the nation shall be and stamp them with the seal of the State; it is not for the nation to present them to the head of the State stamped with the national seal." Consequently, at the end of a year, he becomes, through the establishment of electoral colleges, the veritable grand-elector of all the notables; he has transformed, with his usual address, a liberal institution into a reigning instrumentality.4117 Provisionally, he holds on to the list of communal notables, "because it is the work of the people, the result of a grand movement which must not prove useless, and because, moreover, it contains a large number of names.... offering a wide margin from which to make good selections.4118 He brings together these notables in each canton, and invites them to designate their trusty men, the candidates from which he will choose municipal councilors. But, as there are very few cultivated men in the rural districts, "nearly always it is the old seignior who would get himself designated";4119 it is essential that the hand of the government should not be forced, that its faculty of choosing should not be restricted. Thus, the presentation of municipal councilors of that category must cease, there must no longer be any preliminary candidates. Now, according the sÉnatus-consulte, this category is a large one, for it comprises all communes of less than 5000 souls, and therefore over 35,000 municipal councils out of 36,000, whose members are appointed arbitrarily, without the citizens whom they represent taking any part in their nomination.—Four or five hundred average or large communes still remain, in which for each municipal post, the cantonal assembly designates two candidates between whom the government chooses. Let us see this assembly duly installed and at work.

Its president, as a precautionary step, is imposed upon it. He is appointed in advance by the government, and is well informed as to what the government wants. He alone controls the police of the chamber and the order of all deliberations. On opening the session, he draws a list from his pocket, which list, furnished by the government, contains the names of one hundred of the heaviest taxpayers of the canton, from whom the assembly must select its candidates. The lists lies spread out on the table, and the electors advance in turn, spell the names, and try to read it over. The president would not be very adroit and show but little zeal did he not help them in reading it, and if he did not point out by some sign, a tone of the voice, or even a direct word, what names were agreeable to the government. Now, this government, which has five hundred thousand bayonets at command, dislikes opposition: the electors know it, and look twice before expressing any counter opinion; it is very probable that most of the names suggested by the government are found on their ballots; were only one-half of them there, these would suffice; of the two candidates proposed for each place, if one is acceptable this one will be elected; after making him a candidate the government makes sure that he will become titular. The first act of the electoral comedy is played, and it is not long before no trouble whatever is taken to play it. After January, 1806, by virtue of a decree which has passed himself, Napoleon is the only one4120 who will directly fill every vacancy in the municipal councils; from now on these councils are to owe their existence wholly to him. The two qualities which constitute them, and which, according to SieyÈs, are derived from two distinct sources, are now derived from only one source. Only the Emperor can confer upon them both public confidence and legal power.

The second act of the comedy begins; this act is more complicated, and comprises several scenes which end, some of them, in the appointment of the arrondissement councils, and others in that of the council-general of the department. We will take only the latter, the most important;4121 there are two, one following the other, and in different places.—The first one4122 is played in the cantonal assembly above described; the president, who has just directed the choice of municipal candidates, draws from his portfolio another list, likewise furnished to him by the prefect, and on which six hundred names of those who pay the heaviest taxes in the department are printed. It is from among these six hundred that the cantonal assembly must elect ten or twelve members who, with their fellows, chosen in the same way by the other cantonal assemblies, will form the electoral college of the department, and take their seats at the chief town of the prefecture. This time again, the president, who is the responsible leader of the cantonal flock, takes care to conduct it; his finger on the list indicates to the electors which names the government prefers; if need be, he adds a word to the sign he makes, and, probably, the voters will be as docile as before; and all the more because the composition of the electoral college only half interests them. This college, unlike the municipal council, does not touch or hold any of them on their sensitive side; it is not obliged to tighten or loosen their purse-strings; it does not vote the "additional centimes"; it does not meddle with their business; it there only for show, to simulate the absent people, to present candidates, and thus perform the second electoral scene in the same way as the first one, but at the chief town of the prefecture and by new actors. These extras are also led by a head conductor, appointed by the government, and who is responsible for their behavior, "a president who has in sole charge the police of their assembled college," and must direct their voting. For each vacancy in the council-general of the department, they are to present two names; certainly, almost without any help, and with only a discrete hint, they will guess the suitable names. For they are smarter, more open-minded, than the backward and rural members of a cantonal assembly; they are better informed and better "posted," they have visited the prefect and know his opinion, the opinion of the government, and they vote accordingly. It is certain that one-half, at least, of the candidates whom they present on the list are good, and that suffices, since twice the required number of candidates have to be nominated. And yet, in Napoleon's eye, this is not sufficient. For the nomination of general councilors,4123 as well as that of municipal councilors, he suppresses preliminary candidature, the last remnant of popular representation or delegation. According to his theory, he is himself the sole representative and delegate of the people, invested with full powers, not alone in the State, but again in the department and commune, the prime and the universal motor of the entire machine, not merely at the center, but again at the extremities, dispenser of all public employments, not merely to suggest the candidate for these and make him titular, but again to create directly and at once, both titular and candidate.