The
central legislature in Paris decides for it how much money it shall
use and how it shall raise it. The department council is not even
allowed to express its views on political matters; it can only attend
to purely local details of administration.
The smallest civil division in France is the _commune_, which may
be either rural or urban. The commune has a municipal council which
elects a mayor; but when once elected the mayor becomes directly
responsible to the prefect of the department, and through him to the
minister of the interior. If these greater officers do not like what
the mayor does, they can overrule his acts or even suspend him from
office; or upon their complaint the President of the Republic can
remove him.
[Sidenote: In France whether it is nominally a despotic empire or a
republic at the top, there is scarcely any self-government at the
bottom. Hence government there rests on an insecure foundation.]
Thus in France people do not manage their own affairs, but they are
managed for them by a hierarchy of officials with its head at Paris.
This system was devised by the Constituent Assembly in 1790 and
wrought into completeness by Napoleon in 1800.
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