We have sought very conscientiously, and democrats themselves have sought very conscientiously, to find remedies for this constitutional disease of democracy. We have preserved certain bodies, relatively aristocratic, as refuges, we would fain believe, of efficiency. We have preserved for instance a Senate, elected by universal suffrage, not directly, but in the second degree. We have preserved also a Parliament (a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies), a floating aristocracy which is continually being renewed. This is, however, in a sense an aristocracy inasmuch as it stands between us and a direct and immediate government of the people by the people. These remedies are by no means to be despised, but we recognise that they are very feeble, for the reason that democracy always eludes them. By the care it takes to exclude efficiency, it has made the Chamber of Deputies (with some few exceptions) a body resembling itself with absolute fidelity both in respect of the superficial character of its knowledge and the violence of its prejudices; with the result in my opinion that the crowd might just as well govern directly and, without the intervention of representatives, by means of the plebiscite. The same thing applies to the Senate, though perhaps in a more direct fashion. The Senate is chosen by the delegates of universal suffrage. These delegates, however, are not chosen by a general universal suffrage where each department would choose four or five hundred delegates, but by the town councillors of each commune or parish. In these communes, especially in the rural communes, the municipal councillors who are by far the most numerous and, with regard to elections, the most influential, are more or less completely dependent on the _prefets_. The result is that the Senate is, practically, chosen by the _prefets_, that is, by the Government, as used to be the case under the First and Second Empire. The maker of the constitution made this arrangement for the benefit of his own party, for he upheld authority; and he wanted the Central Government to control the elections of the Senate. It has not turned out as he intended. _Vos non vobis_, others have profited by his device, as the following considerations will show. It is well known that in France a deputy belonging to the opposition, though sure of his constituents, and certain to be re-elected indefinitely, who for private reasons wishes to be a senator, is obliged to be civil to the Government in power, to abate his opposition, and to make himself pleasant, if he wishes to avoid failure in his new ambition. It is very inconvenient to have a strong and active opposition in the Senate. It comes back again to this, that we have a Senate not far removed from one elected by universal suffrage.