propos d'une proposition
de loi, ibid. On the department as at present
constituted the monumental treatise is G. Bouffet
et L. Perier, Traite du departements 2 vols.
(Paris, 1894-1895). In M. Laferriere, Loi organique
departementale du 10 Aout 1871 (Paris, 1871) is an
annotated copy of the organic statute of 1871. See
also G. Dethan, De l'organisation des conseils
generaux (Paris, 1889); A. Nectoux, Des
attributions des conseillers generaux (Paris,
1895); and P. Chardenet, Les elections
departementales (Paris, 1895). An excellent brief
statement will be found in M. Block, Dictionnaire
de l'administration francaise (5th ed., Paris and
Nancy, 1905), I., 933-948, 1101-1116.]

*382. The Arrondissement and the Canton.*--Next to the department stands
the arrondissement, or district, created originally in 1799. Within
the bounds of France there are to-day 362 of these districts. Except
those in the department of the Seine, and three containing the
capitals of departments elsewhere, each has in its chief town a
sub-prefect, who serves as a district representative of the prefect.
Every one has a _conseil d'arrondissement_, or arrondissement council,
consisting of at least nine members, elected by manhood suffrage for a
term of six years. But since the arrondissement has no corporate
personality, no property, and no budget, the council possesses but a
single function of importance, that, namely, of allotting among the
communes their quotas of the taxes assigned to the arrondissement by
the general council of the department. The arrondissement is, (p. 348)
however, the electoral district for the Chamber of Deputies, and also
normally the seat of a court of first instance.[515]

[Footnote 515: Block, Dictionnaire de
l'administration francaise, I., 256-260.]

The canton is an electoral and a judicial, but not strictly an
administrative, unit. It is the area from which are chosen the members
of both the departmental general council and the council of the
arrondissement, and it constitutes the jurisdiction of the justice of
the peace. The total number of cantons is 2,911. As a rule each
contains about a dozen communes, though a