and prefects; the number and division of the sections being such as that all opinions may be, and are represented, in the council. And this, in fact, is what will happen almost everywhere. The mayor and his bailiffs, chosen by the king or the prefect, do not on that account cease to form a part of the municipal council. They are comprised in the number of members that we have pointed out above. The members of the municipal council are elected for six years, and are indefinitely re-eligible. They are necessarily chosen from the list of the electors of the commune, that is, two-thirds from amongst the highest taxed citizens, electors by this title, and the other third alone from amongst all the electors indifferently, provided only that three-fourths at least of the members elected are residents in the commune. They must be of the age of 25 years or upwards; and in communes of 500 souls and upwards, relations, such as father, son, and brother, and connexions in the same degree, cannot be at the same time members of the same municipal council. No one can be a member of two municipal councils. The prefects, sub-prefects, secretaries-general, counsellors of prefecture, and the ministers of the different persuasions, performing their duties in the commune, cannot be members of the municipal

council.

The municipal councils are renewed one half every three years. At the time of the second election, which must take place in three years, the members going out shall be selected by lot, having for this time only been but three years in office. In case of vacancy in the interval of the triennial elections, an election may take place whenever the council is reduced to three-fourths of its number.

The dissolution of the municipal councils may be proclaimed by the king; in which case the new elections must take place within three months. After this complete renewal, the members who are to be replaced at the end of the third year go out by lot. Otherwise they go out by priority of nomination. Each member of the municipal council is replaced by the electoral section which originally nominated him.

This law, promulgated on the 23d of March, 1831, allowed six months for the making out the lists which were to serve for the summoning of the first electoral assemblies; and they were necessarily to be called together immediately afterwards. These operations are every where concluding at this time.*

One article of the same law having authorised the government to suspend its operation in such places as they should deem necessary, this power has been made use of in several communes; but this suspension cannot last more than one year, dating from

*The present article was written, as will appear from this passage and others, in the autumn of 1831.

the first promulgation of the law, and therefore the summoning of the electoral assemblies of all the communes must take place at the latest on the 23d of next March.

Paris is excluded from this new municipal regime. The organization of this city is to be the subject of a special law, which has not yet been brought forward; and, to all appearance, will not be introduced during the present session. The motive assigned for this delay, is, that the municipal organization of Paris is closely connected and mixed up with the organization of the department of the Seine. It has been so, at least until now, and the authorities of the department are at the same time the real municipal authorities. The functions of the mayor of Paris are now, in point of fact, divided between the prefect of police, and the prefect of the department of the Seine, the mayors of the twelve municipal arrondissements possessing little but the title, with the duty of officiers de l'état civil; that is to say, of keeping the public registers of population. The general council of the department fulfils the duties of the municipal council; and there is, even nominally, no other.

The regulating of the municipal organization of the capital will therefore be left, until the laws for the organization of the departments, and for fixing the duties of the general councils of departments, have been passed for the whole of France. In the meantime the Parisians live as heretofore, under the regime of the imperial legislation. The institution of the national guard had strong claims on the attention of the legislature, for the institution existed before the law which regulates its formation, its discipline, and mode of service. The national guard had its origin in the revolution of 1789, and has since re-appeared, and shown itself at every crisis, whether internal or external.

The national guard has undergone many re-organizations under the different governments which have succeeded each other in France. At the time of the revolution of July, it was only established in certain localities; but it was every where spontaneously re-formed, as it had been in the first days of its existence. In this case, as in all other important institutions, the act has preceded the law. In the interval that elapsed between the 27th of July, 1830, and the new law of the 22d of March, 1831, the regulations of the national guard could not be uniform throughout France, but in the greater number of places the legislation of 1791 was spontaneously adopted; that is to say, the citizens, with the consent of the government, took upon themselves the right to nominate their own officers. The law of the 22d of March last regulated and modified in some degree this state of things. The following are its principal enactments:

The national guard is established to defend constitutional

royalty, the charter, and the laws which it has secured; to maintain obedience to the laws; to preserve or restore order and public tranquillity; to second the troops of the line in defending the coasts and frontiers, and to secure the independence of France, and the integrity of its territory.

All Frenchmen between the ages of twenty and sixty years are (or may be) called to serve in the national guard; foreigners admitted to the enjoyment of civil rights conformably to the thirteenth Article of the civil code (that is to say, authorised to fix their domicile in France), may be called on to serve, when they have acquired property, or formed an establishment in the country. The service of the national guard is obligatory and personal, with the following exceptions:

First, Ecclesiastics in holy orders, ministers of the different persuasions, and students in theology.

Secondly, Soldiers or sailors in actual service, those who have received appointments from the ministers of war or the marine, governors or commissioned agents in actual service, by sea or land, workmen belonging to the ports or arsenals, or to the manufactories of arms, organized in a military manner; officers, subalterns, and soldiers of the municipal guards, paid (like the old Parisian gendarmerie, the sapeurs pompiers of Paris, &c.)

Thirdly, Officers of the customs and excise, of the boards of health, woods and forests, &c.

Fourthly, Keepers of gaols, turnkeys, and other inferior officers of justice or police.

Likewise there are excluded:-Vagabonds, persons convicted of acts of vagrancy, and of course those convicted of robbery, sharpers, bankrupts, &c.

Although apparently all Frenchmen are called to serve in the national guard, in reality it is not so. For instance, national guards after they are fifty-five years of age, and old soldiers of the age of fifty, after twenty years' service, may claim exemption from the ordinary service. It is the same with the members of the two legislative chambers, the members of the courts or tribunals, persons employed in the post-office, &c.; on the other hand, none can be entered in the ordinary register of the service but those who pay some personal tax; and their children, when they shall have attained the age required by law. Nevertheless, national guards neither rated themselves, nor the sons of persons rated, who having served since the 1st of August, 1830, should wish to continue, are accepted, and admitted on the ordinary service. All other citizens to whom the law supposes the ordinary service would be too burdensome a charge, are entered on the reserved registers, and can only be called on under extraordinary circumstances. The motive alleged for this is evidently

not the only one which has caused their exclusion, and not their exemption from the ordinary service. Otherwise a choice would necessarily have been left to them. This then is another of the many examples which France has witnessed, since the imperial government, of hypocrisy in the laws. However this may be, it is apparent that the division of the national guard into two classes is very decided. The companies, and subdivisions of companies, are formed solely from the ordinary register; that is, from citizens entered on this register alone, who concur in the choice of their officers. The other citizens are divided amongst the companies or subdivisions of companies in such a manner as to be incorporated with them when necessary.

The national guard is, by the new law, to be organized in each commune, and here again are found the same system of parcellingout, of minute division, the same dread of contact, and of the simultaneous assembling of a great number of citizens. However, the law permits the companies of all the communes in a district to muster in battalion, when such a measure is prescribed by a royal ordinance.

This step must have been adopted in order to prevent the complete dissolution of the national guard, especially in the country. For what is a body of less than fourteen men, and even in the most populous communes, of from not more than fifty to sixty men, manœuvring, exercising, and acting alone?

Each company of from fifty to two hundred men has its captain, lieutenant, and sub-lieutenant, or lieutenants and sublieutenants. Each separate corps of from thirty to fifty men has its lieutenant and sub-lieutenant. Each battalion (when a royal ordinance has appointed the national guards of several communes to form in battalion, or when in any single town or commune more than five hundred are found in ordinary service), has its commander, its colours, its ensigns, &c. And in those districts or towns in which the national guard forms at least two battalions of five-hundred men each, it may by a royal ordinance be formed into legions. Each legion has then its staff, composed, independently of the staff, or officers of each battalion, of a colonel, lieutenant-colonel, major, &c. In communes where there are several legions, there may be a general officer; and the officers of his staff are appointed by the king.

The colonels and lieutenant-colonels of the legions are likewise chosen by the king, but from a list of ten candidates, framed by the relative majority, of-First, all the officers of the battalions forming the legion:-Secondly, of the subalterns, corporals, and privates, nominated, as will shortly be pointed out, to concur in choosing the leaders of the battalions. The chiefs of battalion and ensigns are appointed immediately by the officers of all the

companies forming the battalion, joined to an equal number of subalterns or privates, chosen indiscriminately by a real majority of suffrages.

The officers and subalterns of each company or subdivision, are elected in each commune by all the national guards of the company or subdivision, entered in the register of ordinary service; that is, the officers by individual ballot, and an absolute majority of suffrages; the subalterns and corporals by a relative majority, and by a ballot on lists.

All officers, subalterns, and corporals, are appointed or elected for three years, and may be re-elected.

The right of thus choosing the officers and subalterns, is certainly one of the victories of the revolution of July, but only as regards what was done under the Empire and the Restoration. For it is, in point of fact, a return to the system existing between 1791 and 1805, at which period Napoleon, seconded by his senate, possessed himself of the right of appointing the officers, who themselves afterwards chose the subaltern officers. In our time a complaint has been made against that spirit of distrust which has deprived the national guards, or at least the officers and the electors named by them, of the appointment of their colonel and lieutenant-colonel.

The organization of the national guard is permanent, yet the king may suspend or dissolve it in certain places, but in either case, the national guard of those places must be restored or reorganized within the year, dating from the day of the dissolution or suspension; unless a law has been passed in the interval prolonging the delay. The prefects may also, in certain cases, suspend the national guard provisionally in the communes of their department; but this suspension can only remain in force for two months, unless in virtue of the preceding regulation it has been legalized, or the dissolution has been proclaimed by the king. A regulation of quite a transitory nature authorizes the government to suspend, if necessary, for three years, the organization of the national guards in the rural communes; and for one year, that is, till the end of March 1831, in such communes as by themselves alone form one or several districts; and also for one year, in all places, the re-election of officers.

The national guards cannot take arms, nor assemble as national guards, without the order of their immediate chiefs, who cannot give this order (excepting for the service of ordinary guard) without a requisition from the civil authorities, that is, from the mayors. The national guard is placed, both with regard to service, government, and responsibility, under the immediate authority of these functionaries, and under the superior and hierarchical