The electoral colleges had the following powers:  they nominated two candidates for each place vacant in the merely consultative councils of their respective areas, and had the equally barren honour of presenting two candidates for the Tribunate—­the final act of selection being decided by the executive, that is, by the First Consul.  Corresponding privileges were accorded to the electoral colleges of the Department, save that these plutocratic bodies had the right of presenting candidates for admission to the Senate.  The lists of candidates for the Corps Legislatif were to be formed by the joint action of the electoral colleges, namely, those of the Departments and those of the arrondissements.  But as the resulting councils and parliamentary bodies had only the shadow of power, the whole apparatus was but an imposing machine for winnowing the air and threshing chaff.

The First Consul secured few additional rights or attributes, except the exercise of the royal prerogative of granting pardon.  But, in truth, his own powers were already so large that they were scarcely susceptible of extension.  The three Consuls held office for life, and were ex officio members of the Senate.  The second and third Consuls were nominated by the Senate on the presentation of the First Consul:  the Senate might reject two names proposed by him for either office, but they must accept his third nominee.  The First Consul might deposit in the State archives his proposal as to his successor:  if the Senate rejected this proposal, the second and third Consuls made a suggestion; and if it were rejected, one of the two whom they thereupon named must be elected by the Senate.  The three legislative bodies lost practically all their powers, those of the Corps Legislatif going to the Senate, those of the Council of State to an official Cabal formed out of it; while the Tribunate was forced to debate secretly in five sections, where, as Bonaparte observed, they might jabber as they liked.

On the other hand, the attributes of the Senate were signally enhanced.  It was thenceforth charged, not only with the preservation of the republican constitution, but with its interpretation in disputed points, and its completion wherever it should be found wanting.  Furthermore, by means of organic senatus consulta it was empowered to make constitutions for the French colonies, or to suspend trial by jury for five years in any Department, or even to declare it outside the limits of the constitution.  It now gained the right of being consulted in regard to the ratification of treaties, previously enjoyed by the Corps Legislatif. Finally, it could dissolve the Corps Legislatif and the Tribunate.  But this formidable machinery was kept under the strict control of the chief engineer:  all these powers were set in motion on the initiative of the Government; and the proposals for its laws, or senatus consulta, were discussed in the