ting unconstitutionally. In speaking he would have been
constitutional, in holding his tongue he was _institutional_. He had
been in fact _institutionally_ silent. He disobeyed the letter of the
constitution, but he had admirably extracted its meaning from it, and
understood and respected its spirit.

Under democracy, then, the national representatives govern as directly
and as really as possible, dictating a policy to the executive and
neutralising the supreme chief of the executive to whom it is not able
to dictate.

The national representatives are not content with governing, they wish
to administer. Now consider how it would be if the permanent officials
of finance, justice and police, etc., depended solely on their
parliamentary chiefs, who are ministers only because they are the
creatures of the popular assembly, liable to instant and frequent
dismissal; surely then, these officials, more permanent than their
chiefs, would form an aristocracy, and would administer the state
independently of the popular will and according to their own ideas.

This, of course, must not be allowed to happen. There must not be any
will but the people's will, no other power, however limited, but its
own.

This causes a dilemma which is sufficiently remarkable. Here we seem to
have contrary results from the same cause. Since the popular assembly
governs ministers, and frequently dismisses them, they are not able to
govern their subordinates as did Colbert and Louvois, and these
subordinates accordingly are very independent; so it comes about that
the greater the authority which the popular assembly wields over
ministers, the more it is likely to lose in its control over the
subordinates of ministers, and in destroying one rival power it creates
another.

The dilemma, however, is avoided easily enough. No public official is
appointed without receiving its _visa_, and it contrives even to elect
the administrative officials. In the first place, the national
representatives, in their corporate capacity, and in the central offices
of government, watch most attentively the appointment of the permanent
staff, and further each single member of the representative government
in his province, in his department, in his _arrondissement_ picks and
chooses the candidates and really appoints the permanent staff. This is,
of course, necessary, if the national will is to be paramount here as
well as elsewhere, and if the people is to secure servant