eel, of
sound or of unsound timber.--But the legislators had not taken that into
consideration during the last ten years. They had set themselves up as
theoreticians, and likewise as optimists, without looking at the things,
or else imagining the them as they wished to have them. In the national
assemblies, as well as with the public, the task was deemed easy and
simple, whereas it was extraordinary and immense; for the matter in
hand consisted in effecting a social revolution and in carrying on an
European war. The materials were supposed to be excellent, as manageable
as they were substantial, while, in fact, they were very poor, being
both refractory and brittle, for these human materials consisted of
the Frenchmen of 1789 and of the following years; that is to say,
of exceedingly sensitive men doing each other all possible harm,
inexperienced in political business, Utopians, impatient, intractable,
and overexcited. Calculations had been made on these prodigiously false
data; consequently, although the calculations were very exact, the
results obtained were found absurd. Relying on these data, the machine
had been planned, and all its parts been adjusted, assembled, and
balanced. That is why the machine, irreproachable in theory, remained
unsuccessful in practice: the better it appeared on paper the quicker it
broke down when set up on the ground.

II. Default of previous government.

The consequences of the years 1789 to 1799.--Insubordination
of the local powers, conflict of the central powers,
suppression of liberal institutions, and the establishment
of an unstable despotism.--Evil-doing of the government thus
formed.

A capital defect at once declared itself in the two principal
compositions, in the working gear of the superposed powers and in the
balance of the motor powers.--In the first place, the hold given to the
central government on its local subordinates was evidently too feeble;
with no right to appoint these, it could not select them as it pleased,
according to the requirements of the service. Department, district,
canton, and commune administrators, civil and criminal judges,
assessors, appraisers, and collectors of taxes, officers of the
national-guard and even of the gendarmerie, police-commissioners,
and other agents who had to enforce laws on the spot, were nearly all
recruited elsewhere: either in popular assemblies or provided ready-made
by elected bodies.[2101