Every district and every chef-lieu had every year an assembly of deputies who named a permanent committee for three years.  This committee was charged with the municipal administration, under the control of the assembly.  Everyone was called by law to the election of the deputies.  It happened in many places that the peasants were the more numerous and could therefore dispose of all the places in the administrative committee.  They were so informed.  “No,” was their answer; “we want one or two members of the committee taken from among ourselves; they will watch over our interests.  As for defending them, as for action, the nobles we name will do it better than we, for they are more learned than we are.”  In one of the assemblies the nobles, moved by the tact and moderation of the peasants, insisted and almost forced a peasant to become president of the administrative committee of the district.  When the salary of the members of the committee had to be decided, the peasants usually considered it too high for them, and, letting the nobles and the merchants have it, got it diminished by one-half for themselves.

All the district assemblies, after voting for the formation of the administrative committee, named the deputies for the larger assembly in the chief town in the province, which in its turn chose among its own members the members for the provincial administrative committee.  The central committee seemed to interest the peasants less than those of the districts, and this too is owing to their modesty and moderation.

Another field was offered by the new law to the activity of the peasants in the local or municipal tribunals.  The law united several rural communes in one canton (volost). Each canton, each commune, chose an ancient, assisted by a conseil In every canton was a tribunal to judge the peasants’ affairs.  Ancients and judges were elected by peasants; noblemen were not submitted to these tribunals, but it has happened that some of them preferred having their difficulties with peasants settled by municipal judges rather than by the usual tribunals.  This jurisdiction, established merely for peasants, had great importance, owing chiefly to the privilege of deciding not only according to general law, but also according to local customs.  Opportunities were not wanting for the good sense of the peasants to show itself in these municipal tribunals and councils, and the success of the institution was clear to everyone.

(1844-1861) CHRONOLOGY OF UNIVERSAL HISTORY, Embracing the period
            covered in this volume, Daniel Edwin Wheeler

Events treated at length are here indicated in large type; the numerals following give volume and page.

Separate chronologies or the various nations, and of the careers of famous persons, will be found in the INDEX VOLUME, with references showing where the several events are fully treated.

1844 — “INVENTION OF THE TELEGRAPH.”