The "Considérations," as written in 1737, is founded upon two principles. D'Argenson felt that for the rapid and decisive action which a great nation should be able to employ, a strong and united government was necessary: and that in the Monarchy France possessed such a government. He saw at the same time that that government had charged itself with a multitude of minute concerns which it could not possibly understand or supervise, and that consequently the rural districts were neglected, and local administration throughout the country was in a shameful state of nullity or disorder. He proposed therefore to disband the great army of subaltern officials who worked or shirked in the pay of the Sub-delegates, and with an emancipation of thought which is truly astonishing, to hand over their duties to popular control. With that object he devised the following scheme. Henceforth the business of each city, borough or village (_ville, bourg et village_), should be managed by a committee of the inhabitants, to the number of five or more. Persons eligible for service in that capacity should be nominated in an annual meeting of the inhabitants; and the officers should be appointed from among the nominees by, and at the discretion of, the Sub-delegate. The latter, while ceasing to interfere directly in parochial concerns, should maintain a general control and supervision, and should have a discretionary power to displace the local officers for dereliction of duty or other misconduct. In matters affecting more than one district the local authorities might confer together, after specifying the subjects of the conference, and obtaining from the Sub-delegate a formal warrant. The national taxes should henceforth be raised in the form of a communal grant, equal in amount to the sum hitherto obtained from the taille; it was to be assessed upon the inhabitants of the district by the local authority, and paid in by them to the Financial Receivers, who should be, in addition to the Intendants and Sub-delegates, the only royal officers. The reform should be introduced gradually, and might be submitted to experiment in certain districts in the neighbourhood of Paris, and in the wards of Paris itself. In any attempt to introduce it, the authority of the Crown must be scrupulously maintained.[417] Such are the principal, and from a constitutional point of view, the only essential features of the project of 1737. It is with this scheme that M. Martin deals in his notice of d'Argenson. He concludes a summary of it with a critical remark which is characteristic of the tone not infrequently held with regard to d'Argenson and his proposals. He says:-- "Monarchy without nobility, without a judicial aristocracy, and without a bureaucracy, royalty suspended without supports at an enormous height above a democratic society--there is d'Argenson's dream: illusion of a noble heart!" etc.