In creating a Constitution intended solely to fortify his own power, the First Consul had no illusion that it would serve to restore the country. Consequently, while he was drafting it he also undertook the enormous task of the administrative, judicial, and financial reorganisation of France. The various powers were centralised in Paris. Each department was directed by a prefect, assisted by a consul-general; the arrondissement by a sub- prefect, assisted by a council; the commune by a mayor, assisted by a municipal council. All were appointed by the ministers, and not by election, as under the Republic. This system, which created the omnipotent State and a powerful centralisation, was retained by all subsequent Governments and is preserved to-day. Centralisation being, in spite of its drawbacks, the only means of avoiding local tyrannies in a country profoundly divided within itself, has always been maintained. This organisation, based on a profound knowledge of the soul of the French people, immediately restored that tranquillity and order which had for so long been unknown. To complete the mental pacification of the country, the political exiles were recalled and the churches restored to the faithful. Continuing to rebuild the social edifice, Bonaparte busied himself also with the drafting of a code, the greater part of which consisted of customs borrowed from the ancien regime. It was, as has been said, a sort of transition or compromise between the old law and the new. Considering the enormous task accomplished by the First Consul in so short a time, we realise that he had need, before all, of a Constitution according him absolute power. If all the measures by which he restored France had been submitted to assemblies of attorneys, he could never have extricated the country from the disorder into which it had fallen. The Constitution of the year VIII. obviously transformed the Republic into a monarchy at least as absolute as the ``Divine right'' monarchy of Louis XIV. Being the only Constitution adapted to the needs of the moment, it represented a psychological necessity. 3. Psychological Elements which determined the Success of the Work of the Consulate. All the external forces which act upon men--economic, historical, geographical, &c.--may be finally translated into psychological forces. These psychological forces a ruler must understand in order to govern. The Revolutionary Assemblies were completely ignorant of them; Bonaparte knew how to employ them.