The Conseil d'État, which sits in the Palais-Royal under the presidency of the Garde des Sceaux, is at once a council of the government by its participation in the drawing up of laws, a council of administration, and the highest of administrative juridical bodies. It deliberates in two sections, in _Assemblée Générale_ and in _Assemblée du Contentieux_. The Conseil Général de la Seine, which holds its sessions in its chamber at the Hôtel de Ville, is composed of eighty municipal councillors of Paris and twenty-one general councillors elected by the cantons of the banlieue. The Conseil Municipal, which also sits at the Hôtel de Ville, is elected from the twenty arrondissements of the city, one from each quarter, for four years, and corresponds to the Conseils of the Communes in the departments. The Préfet de la Seine and the Préfet de Police have the right of attendance at its sittings and of being heard whenever they wish. In the Palais du Tribunal de Commerce, the Conseil de Préfecture de la Seine holds its sittings and occupies itself with a great variety of municipal matters confided to its jurisdiction by law. In the capital, the executive power, which in the other communes of France is confided to the Maires, is exercised by the two Préfets, of the Seine and of Police, who are thus invested with the triple character of representatives of the State, of the Administration of the Department of the Seine, and of superior officers of the State performing the duties of Maire of Paris. Those divisions of the municipal administration which depend directly upon the Préfecture of the Seine are located in various buildings,--in the Hôtel de Ville itself, in the _Annexe Est_, the old caserne Lobau, just across the Place Lobau, in the _Annexe Nord_, on the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville and the Avenue Victoria, and at numerous other localities throughout the city. The balls of the Hôtel de Ville--which are a portion of the municipal administration--have recently been replaced by more frequent receptions, at which there is always dancing and a concert.