The Federation was represented by a Federal Committee in Paris. Each Bourse had the right to a delegate in the Committee, but a single delegate could represent several Bourses. As the Federal Committee was in Paris, the delegates were not members of the Bourses they represented. They were chosen by the Bourses from a list sent to them by the Secretary of the Federation and made up of men either personally known by him or recommended to him. This gave rise to dissatisfaction, and it was decided that the secretary should complete the list of candidates with remarks on their political attachments, so that the Bourses might choose representatives expressing exactly their opinions. In this way the Federal Committee came to be composed of various political elements. In 1899 there were 48 Bourses in the Federation; of these three were represented in the Federal Committee by Blanquists, eleven by Allemanists, five by Guesdists. The last named soon left the Federation; the rest did not adhere to any party. "Within the group of their representatives particularly," wrote Pelloutier, "must one look for those convinced libertarians[94] whom the Bourses have maintained as delegates regardless of the reproaches of certain socialist schools, and who, without fuss, have done so much for some years to enhance the individual energy and the development of the syndicats."[95] The Committee had no executive officers, not even a chairman. The business was done by the secretary, an assistant secretary and a treasurer. The first received 1,200 francs a year. Each session began with the reading of the minutes of the preceding session, and of the correspondence; then the discussion of the questions raised by the correspondence, inscribed on the order of the day, or raised by the delegates, occurred. A vote took place only in cases, "extremely rare", when an irreconciliable divergence of views sprang up. The meetings took place twice a month. [94] The anarchists in France call themselves _libertaires_. [95] Pelloutier, _op. cit._, p. 151. Pelloutier wrote: The suppression of the chairmanship and of useless voting dates only from the entrance of the libertarians into the Committee, but experience soon convinced all members that between serious and disinterested men there is no necessity of a monitor because everyone considers it an honor to respect the freedom of discussion and even, (without wavering from his principles) to conduct the debate in a conversational tone.