Sunday, April 9.—­Another sultry day.  I waited till the sun was low, and then sauntered by the side of the river with Tocqueville.

‘The worst faults of this Government,’ said Tocqueville, ’are those which do not alarm the public.

’It is depriving us of the local franchises and local self-government which we have extorted from the central power in a struggle of forty years.  The Restoration and the Government of July were as absolute centralizers as Napoleon himself.  The local power which they were forced to surrender they made over to the narrow pays legal, the privileged ten-pounders, who were then attempting to govern France.  The Republic gave the name of Conseils-generaux to the people, and thus dethroned the notaires who had governed those assemblies when they represented only the bourgeoisie.  The Republic made the maires elective.  The Republic placed education in the hands of local authorities.  Under its influence, the communes, the cantons, and the departments were becoming real administrative bodies.  They are now mere geographical divisions.  The prefet appoints the maires.  The prefet appoints in every canton a commissaire de police—­seldom a respectable man, as the office is not honourable.  The gardes champetres, who are our local police, are put under his control.  The recteur, who was a sort of local Minister of Education in every department, is suppressed.  His powers are transferred to the prefet.  The prefet appoints, promotes, and dismisses all the masters of the ecoles primaires. He has the power to convert the commune into a mere unorganised aggregation of individuals, by dismissing every communal functionary, and placing its concerns in the hands of his own nominees.  There are many hundreds of communes that have been thus treated, and whose masters now are uneducated peasants.  The prefet can dissolve the Conseil-general of his department and, although he cannot directly name its successors, he does so virtually.

’No candidate for an elective office can succeed unless he is supported by the Government.  The prefet can destroy the prosperity of every commune that displeases him.  He can dismiss its functionaries, close its schools, obstruct its improvements, and withhold the assistance in money which the Government habitually gives to forward the public purposes of a commune.

’The Courts of Law, both criminal and civil, are the tools of the Executive.  The Government appoints the judges, the prefet provides the jury, and la haute police acts without either.

’All power of combination, even of mutual communication, except from mouth to mouth, is gone.  The newspapers are suppressed or intimidated, the printers are the slaves of the prefet, as they lose their privilege if they offend; the secrecy of the post is habitually and avowedly violated; there are spies to watch and report conversation.