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[ Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L'administrateur locale en France et en Angleterre," pp.26, 28, 92. (Decrees of March 25, 1852, and April 13, 1861.)]
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[ 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.]
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[ 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!">[
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[ 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.">[
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[ These figures are taken from the latest statistical reports. Some of them are furnished by the chief or directors of special services.]