and subordinate, approved
or rebuked, the principal actors remain in charge and do as they please;
they grant or dispute over its head, independently, just as it suits
them. In effect, it is not to the municipal council that the mayor
renders his accounts, but "to the sub-prefect, who finally passes them,"
and gives him his discharge. Whatever the council may say, the approval
is valid; for greater security, the prefect, if any councilor proves
refractory, "may suspend from his functions" a stubborn fellow like
him, and restore in the council the unanimity which has been partially
disturbed.--In the department, the council-general must likewise
"listen" to the accounts for the year; the law, owing to a significant
omission, does not say that is may discuss them. Nevertheless, a
circular of the year IX requests it to "make every observation on the
use of the additional centimes" which the importance of the subject
demands, to verify whether each sum debited to expenses has been used
for the purpose assigned to it, and even "to reject expenses, stating
the reasons for this decision, which have not been sufficiently
justified." And better still, the minister, who is a liberal, addresses
a systematic series of questions to the general councils, on all
important matters,[4137] "agriculture, commerce, and manufactures,
asylums and public charities, public roads and other works, public
instruction, administration properly so called, state of the number of
population, public spirit and opinions," collecting and printing their
observations and desires. After the year IX, however, this publication
stops; it renders the general councils too important; it might rally the
entire population of the department to them and even of all France that
could read; it might hamper the prefect and diminish his ascendancy.
From now on, it is the prefect alone who replies to these questions, and
of which the government gives an analysis or tables of statistics;[4138]
then, the publication of these ceases; decidedly, printing always has
its drawbacks--manuscript reports are much better; local affairs are
no longer transacted outside the bureaus, and are managed with closed
doors; any report that might spread outside the prefect's cabinet or
that of the minister, is carefully toned down or purposely stifled, and,
under the prefect's thumb, the general council becomes an automaton.

In private, dealing directly with the Emperor's representative, it