The French Revolution (Vol.1-3). Taine Hippolyte

issued and their execution. France is a federation of forty thousand municipal sovereignties, in which the authority of legal magistrates varies according to the caprice of active citizens. These active citizens, too heavily loaded, shy away from the performance of public duty; in which a minority of fanatics and ambitious men monopolize the right to speak, to vote, all influence, the power and all action. They justify their multiple ursurpations, their unbridled despotism, and their increasing encroachments by the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The masterpiece2343 of ideal abstractions and of practical absurdities is accomplished. In accordance with the Constitution spontaneous anarchy becomes legalized anarchy. The latter is perfect; nothing finer of the kind has been seen since the ninth century.

      2301 (return) [ The name for the dreaded secret Royal warrant of arrest. (SR.)]

      2302 (return) [ The initiative rests with the King on one point: war cannot be decreed by the Assembly except on his formal and preliminary proposition. This exception was secured only after a violent struggle and a supreme effort by Mirabeau.]

      2303 (return) [ Speech by Lanjuinais, November 7, 1789. "We determined on the separation of the powers. Why, then, should the proposal he made to us to unite the legislative power with the executive power in the persons of the ministers?"]

      2304 (return) [ See the attendance of the Ministers before the Legislative Assembly.]

      2305 (return) [ "Any society in which the separation of the powers is not clearly defined has no constitution." (Declaration of Rights, article XVI.)—This principle is borrowed from a text by Montesquieu, also from the American Constitution. In the rest the theory of Rousseau is followed.]

      2306 (return) [ Mercure de France, an expression by Mallet du Pan.]

      2307 (return) [ Constitution of 1791, ch. II. articles 5, 6, 7.—Decree of September 25—October 6, 1791, section III. articles, 8 to 25.]

      2308 (return) [ Speeches by Barnave and Roederer in the constituent Assembly.—Speeches by Barnave and Duport in the Jacobin Club.]

      2309 (return) [ Principal texts. (Duvergier, "Collection des Lois et Decrets.")—Laws on municipal and administrative organization, December 14 and 22, 1789; August 12–20, 1790; March 12, 1791. On the municipal organization of Paris, May 21st, June 27, 1790.—Laws on the organization of the Judiciary, August 16–24, 1790; September 16–29, 1791; September 29, October 21, 1791.—Laws on military organization, September 23, October 29, 1790; January 16, 1791; July 27, 28, 1791—Laws on the financial organization, November 14–24,.1790; November 23, 1790; March 17, 1791; September 26, October 2, 1791.]

      2310 (return) [ The removal of such managerial authority has since the second World war taken place inside the United Nations and other Western public administrations and seems to be the aim of much communist trade union effort. The result has everywhere been added cost and decreased efficiency. (SR.)]

      2311 (return) [ This principle has been introduced in Western educational systems when clever self-appointed psychologists told parents and teacher alike that they could and should not punish their children but only talk and explain to them. (SR.)]

      2312 (return) [ This description fits the staff regulations of the United Nations secretariat in which I served for 32 years. (SR.)]

      2313 (return) [ Decrees of December 14 and December 22, 1789: "In municipalities reduced to three members (communes below five hundred inhabitants), all executive functions shall belong to the mayor alone."]

      2314 (return) [ Could it be that Lenin took note of this and had it this translated in Russian and made use of it in his and later in Stalin's schools for international revolutionaries. It would in any case have weakened the Bourgeois Capitalist countries. In any case such measures have been introduced both in the international organizations and in most Western Democratic Governments after World War II. (SR.)]

      2315 (return) [ This was in the United Nations called 'Rotation' and made the administration of missions and forces difficult, expensive and inefficient. This rotation was also used in the Indian and other armies in order to prevent the officers to reach an understanding or achieve any power over the troops under their command. (SR.)]

      2316 (return) [ Laws of September 23—October 29, 1790; January 16, 1791. (Titles II. And VII.)—Cf. the legal prescriptions in relation to the military tribunals. In every prosecuting or judicial jury one-seventh of the sworn members are taken from the non-commissioned officers, and one-seventh from the soldiers, and again, according to the rank of the accused, the number of those of the same rank is doubled.]

      2317 (return) [ Law of July 28th, August 12, 1791.]

      2318 (return) [ Laws of November 24, 1789 (article 52), August 10–14, 1789.—Instruction of August 10–20, 1790; § 8—Law of October 21, November 21, 1789.]

      2319 (return) [ Laws of November 14 and 23, 1790; January 13th, September 26th, October 9, 1792.]

      2320 (return) [ Albert Babeau, I. 327 (Féte of the Federation, July 14, 1790).—"Archives Nationales," F7, 3215 (May 17,1791, Deliberation of the council-general of the commune of Brest. May 17 and 19, Letters of the directory of the district).—Mercure, March 5, 1791. "Mesdames are stopped until the return of the two deputies, whom the Republic of Arnay-le-Duc has sent to the representatives of the nation to demonstrate to them