France -- Civilization; France -- Politics and government; France -- Social life and customs -- 19th century
[Footnote 2101: "The Revolution," P.193 and following pages, also p.224
and following pages. The provisions of the constitution of the year
III, somewhat less anarchical, are analogous; those of the "Mountain"
constitution (year II) are so anarchical that nobody thought of
enforcing them.]
[Footnote 2102: "The Revolution," vol. III., pp.446, 450, 476.]
[Footnote 2103: Sauzay, "Histoire de la persecution révolutionnaire dans
le département du Doubs," X., 472 (Speech of Briot to the five-hundred,
Aug.29, 1799): "The country seeks in vain for its children; it finds the
chouans, the Jacobins, the moderates, and the constitutionalists of
'91 and '93, clubbists, the amnestied, fanatics, scissionists and
antiscissionists; in vain does it call for republicans."]
[Footnote 2104: "The Revolution," III., 427, 474.--Rocquain, "L'état de
la France au 18 Brumaire," 360, 362: "Inertia or absence of the national
agents. .. It would be painful to think that a lack of salary was one of
the causes of the difficulty in establishing municipal administrations.
In 1790, 1791, and 1792, we found our fellow-citizens emulously striving
after these gratuitous offices and even proud of the disinterestedness
which the law prescribed." (Report of the Directory, end of 1795.)
After this date public spirit is extinguished, stifled by the Reign
of Terror.--Ibid., 368, 369: "Deplorable indifference for public
offices.... Out of seven town officials appointed in the commune of
Laval, only one accepted, and that one the least capable. It is the same
in the other communes."--Ibid., 380 (Report of the year VII): "General
decline of public spirit."--Ibid., 287 (Report by Lacuée, on the
1st military division, Aisne, Eure-et-Loire, Loiret, Oise, Seine,
Seine-et-Marne, (year IX): "Public spirit is dying out and is even
gone."]
[Footnote 2105: Rocquain, Ibid., p.27 (Report of François de Nantes, on
the 8th military division,Vaucluse, Bouches-du-Rhône, Var, Basses-Alpes,
and Alpes-Maratimes, year IX): "Witnesses, in some communes, did not
dare furnish testimony, and, in all, the justices of the peace were
afraid of making enemies and of not being re-elected. It was the same
with the town officials charged with prosecutions and whom their quality
as elected and temporary officials always rendered timid."--Ibid., 48:
"All the customs-directors complained of the partiality of the courts. I
have myself examined several cases in which the courts of Marseilles
and Toulon decided against the plain text the law and with criminal
partiality.--Archives nationales, series F7, Reports "on the situation,
on the spirit of the public," in many hundreds of towns, cantons, and
departments, from the year III to the year VIII and after.]
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