in their several Departments, were thereupon to choose one-tenth of their number; and the resulting fifty or sixty thousand men, termed Notabilities of the Departments, were again to name one-tenth of their number, who were styled Notabilities of the Nation.  But the most important act of selection was still to come—­from above.  From this last-named list the governing powers were to select the members of the legislative bodies and the chief officials and servants of the Government.

The executive now claims a brief notice.  The well-worn theory of the distinction of powers, that is, the legislative and executive powers, was maintained in Sieyes’ plan.  At the head of the Government the philosopher desired to enthrone an august personage, the Grand Elector, who was to be selected by the Senate.  This Grand Elector was to nominate two Consuls, one for peace, the other for war; they were to nominate the Ministers of State, who in their turn selected the agents of power from the list of Notabilities of the Nation.  The two Consuls and their Ministers administered the executive affairs.  The Senate, sitting in dignified ease, was merely to safeguard the constitution, to elect the Grand Elector, and to select the members of the Corps Legislatif (proper) and the Tribunate.

Distrust of the former almost superhuman activity in law-making now appeared in divisions, checks, and balances quite ingenious in their complexity.  The Legislature was divided into three councils:  the Corps Legislatif, properly so called, which listened in silence to proposals of laws offered by the Council of State and criticised or orally approved by the Tribunate.[131] These three bodies were not only divided, but were placed in opposition, especially the two talking bodies, which resembled plaintiff and defendant pleading before a gagged judge.  But even so the constitution was not sufficiently guarded against Jacobins or royalists.  If by any chance a dangerous proposal were forced through these mutually distrustful bodies, the Senate was charged with the task of vetoing it, and if the Grand Elector, or any other high official, strove to gain a perpetual dictatorship, the Senate was at once to absorb him into its ranks.

Moreover, lest the voters should send up too large a proportion of Jacobins or royalists, the first selection of members of the great Councils and the chief functionaries for local affairs was to be made by the Consuls, who thus primarily exercised not only the “power from above,” but also the “confidence” which ought to have come from below.  Perhaps this device was necessary to set in motion Sieyes’ system of wheels within wheels; for the Senate, which was to elect the Grand Elector, by whom the executive officers were indirectly to be chosen, was in part self-sufficient:  the Consuls named the first members, who then co-opted, that is, chose the new members.  Some impulse from without was also needed to give the constitution life; and this impulse was now to come.  Where Sieyes had only contrived wheels, checks, regulator, break, and safety-valve, there now rushed in an imperious will which not only simplified the parts but supplied an irresistible motive power.