In fact, it would be difficult to point out in any country during the Nineteenth Century, since the time of Bonaparte's Consulate, a work of political, economic, and social renovation greater than that which went on in the two years during which Thiers held the reins of power. Apart from the unparalleled feat of paying off the Germans, the Chief of the Executive breathed new vigour into the public service, revived national spirit in so noteworthy a way as to bring down threats of war from German military circles in 1872 (to be repeated more seriously in 1875), and placed on the Statute Book two measures of paramount importance. These were the reform of Local Government and the Army Bill. These measures claim a brief notice. The former of them naturally falls into two parts, dealing severally with the Commune and the Department. These are the two all-important areas in French life. In rural districts the Commune corresponds to the English parish; it is the oldest and best-defined of all local areas. In urban districts it corresponds with the municipality or township. The Revolutionists of 1790 and 1848 had sought to apply the principle of manhood suffrage to communal government; but their plans were swept away by the ensuing reactions, and the dawn of the Third Republic found the Communes, both rural and urban, under the control of the _préfets_ and their subordinates. We must note here that the office of _préfet_, instituted by Bonaparte in 1800, was designed to link the local government of the Departments closely to the central power: this magistrate, appointed by the Executive at Paris, having almost unlimited control over local affairs throughout the several Departments. Indeed, it was against the excessive centralisation of the prefectorial system that the Parisian Communists made their heedless and unmeasured protest. The question having thus been thrust to the front, the Assembly brought forward (April 1871) a measure authorising the election of Communal Councils elected by every adult man who had resided for a year in the Commune. A majority of the Assembly wished that the right of choosing mayors should rest with the Communal Councils, but Thiers, browbeating the deputies by his favourite device of threatening to resign, carried an amendment limiting this right to towns of less than 20,000 inhabitants. In the larger towns, and in all capitals of Departments, the mayors were to be appointed by the central power. Thus the Napoleonic tradition in favour of keeping local government under the oversight of officials nominated from Paris was to some extent perpetuated even in an avowedly democratic measure.