File:The modern world, from Charlemagne to the present time; with a preliminary survey of ancient times (1919) (14777961651).jpg

Identifier: modernworldfromc00bett (find matches)
Title: The modern world, from Charlemagne to the present time; with a preliminary survey of ancient times
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: Betten, Francis S. (Francis Sales), 1863-1942 Kaufmann, Alfred, 1878-1941, joint author
Subjects: History, Modern
Publisher: Boston, New York, (etc.) Allyn and Bacon
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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peace. 587. The Consulate was confirmed by the Constitution of theYear VIII (1800). The government was to rest on manhoodsuffrage, but that suffrage was to be refined by successive filtra-tions. The adult males, some five million in all, were tochoose one tenth their number; the five hundred thousand Communal Notables, so chosen, were in turn to choose onetenth their number ; these fifty thousand Departmental Nota-bles were to choose five thousand National Notables. But all this voting was only to settle eligibility. The execu-tive was to appoint communal officers at will out of the Com-munal Notables, departmental officers out of the DepartmentalNotables, and members of the legislature and other chiefofficers out of the National Notables. The legislature was to be broken up into four parts : a Coun-cil of State to prepare bills; a Tribunate to discuss them, with-out right to vote; a Legislative Chamber to vote upon them,without right to discuss ; and a Senate, with power to veto. 572
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§589) BONAPARTES ADMINISTRATION 573 ISieyes, ivho planned this coiistitution, had intended to breakup the executive in like manner into one Consul for war, an-other for peace, and a ** Grand Elector who should appointthe Consuls and other great officials, but should then have nopart in the government. Here Napoleon intervened. He waswilling to accept a system of elections that never elected any-body, and a legislature that could not legislate ; but he changedthe shadowy Grand Elector into a First Consul, with allother parts of the constitution subject to his will. Bonaparte became First Consul. His colleagues, as he putit, were merely counselors whom I am expected to consult,but whose advice I need not accept. Directly or indirectly,he himself filled all offices, and no law could even be proposedwithout his sanction. 588. Local administration was highly centralized. For eachdepartment Napoleon appointed a Prefect, and for each sub-district a Subprefect. Even the forty thousand mayors

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