[18] See Note XIV., Effect of Feudalism on state of Real Property. CHAPTER II. SHOWING THAT ADMINISTRATIVE CENTRALISATION IS AN INSTITUTION ANTERIOR IN FRANCE TO THE REVOLUTION OF 1789, AND NOT THE PRODUCT OF THE REVOLUTION OR OF THE EMPIRE, AS IS COMMONLY SAID. At a period when political assemblies still existed in France, I once heard an orator, in speaking of administrative centralisation, call it, ‘that admirable achievement of the Revolution which Europe envies us.’ I will concede the fact that centralisation is an admirable achievement; I will admit that Europe envies us its possession, but I maintain that it is not an achievement of the Revolution. On the contrary, it is a product of the former institutions of France, and, I may add, the only portion of the political constitution of the monarchy which survived the Revolution, inasmuch as it was the only one that could be made to adapt itself to the new social condition brought about by that Revolution. The reader who has the patience to read the present chapter with attention will find that I have proved to demonstration this proposition. I must first beg to be allowed to put out of the question what were called _les pays d’état_, that is to say, the provinces that managed their own affairs, or rather had the appearance, in part, of managing them. These provinces, placed at the extremities of the kingdom, did not contain more than a quarter of the total population of France; and there were only two among them in which provincial liberty possessed any real vitality. I shall revert to them hereafter, and show to what an extent the central power had subjected these very states to the common mould.[19] But for the present I desire to give my principal attention to what was called in the administrative language of the day, _les pays d’élection_, although, in truth, there were fewer elections in them than anywhere else. These districts encompassed Paris on every side, they were contiguous, and formed the heart and the better part of the territory of France. To any one who may cast a glance over the ancient administration of the kingdom, the first impression conveyed is that of a diversity of regulations and authorities, and the entangled complication of the different powers. France was covered with administrative bodies and distinct officers, who had no connection with one another, but who took part in the government in virtue of a right which they had purchased, and which could not be taken from them; but their duties were frequently so intermingled and so nearly contiguous as to press and clash together within the range of the same transactions.