I think the Minister of Justice and his _procureur-general_ have very little ground for these lamentations. After all the minister only complains of having 9,000 applications for office. It would surely be quite easy for him, in compliance with the generally recognised principle, to choose those whose incompetence seems to be most thorough, or those who are most influentially supported, according to the prevailing custom. As for the _procureur-general's_ sarcasms, which he thinks so witty, they are quite delightfully diverting and ingenuous. "It seems to be generally recognised that elective office, irrespective of all professional aptitude, is the normal means of access to a paid appointment." What else does he expect? It is eminently democratic that the marked absence of professional capacity should single a man out for employment. That is the very spirit of democracy. He surely does not think that a man is an elector by reason of his legislative and administrative capacity? It is likewise essentially democratic that elective office should lead to paid appointments, for the democratic theory is that all office, paid and unpaid, should be elective. Why, this _procureur-general_ must be an aristocrat! As for the mutual services rendered by the justice, as mayor, to the deputy, and by the deputy to the justice, this is democracy pure and simple. The deputies distribute favours that they may be returned to power; the influential electors put all their interest, both personal and official, at the service of the deputies in order to obtain those favours. They are hand in glove with each other, and form a solid union of interests. What more does the _procureur-general_ want? Does he want a different system? If he wants another system, whatever else it may be, it will not be democracy, or at least it will not be a democratic democracy. Nor have I any idea what he means when he says the Republican system will get a bad name. The good name of the Republic depends upon its putting into practice every democratic principle; and democratic principles have certainly never been more precisely realised than in the preceding example, which I have had great pleasure in rescuing from oblivion and presenting to the notice of sociologists. CHAPTER VIII. EXAMPLES OF INCOMPETENCE. I have already compared this, our desire to worship incompetence, to an infectious disease. It has attacked the State at the very core, in its constitution, and it is not surprising that it is spreading rapidly to the customs and to the morals of the country. The stage, we know, is an imitation of life. Life also, to perhaps an even greater extent, is an imitation of the stage. Similarly laws spring from morals, and morals spring from law. "Men are governed by many things," said Montesquieu, "by climate, religion, laws, precept, example, morals and manners, which act and react upon each other and all combine to form a general temperament."