should consist of two branches, the National Assembly, in
1875, faced the difficult problem of constituting an upper chamber (p. 316)
that should not be a mere replica of the lower, and yet should not
inject into a democratic constitutional system an incongruous element
of aristocracy. The device hit upon was a chamber, seats in which
should be wholly elective, yet not at the immediate disposal of the
people. By the constitutional law of February 24, 1875, it was
provided that the Senate should consist of three hundred members, of
whom two hundred twenty-five should be elected by the departments and
colonies and seventy-five by the National Assembly itself.[473] The
departments of the Seine and of the Nord were authorized to elect five
senators each, the others four, three, or two, as specified in the
law. The senators of the departments and of the colonies were to be
elected by an absolute majority and by _scrutin de liste_, by a
college meeting at the capital of the department or colony, composed
of the deputies and general councillors and of delegates elected, one
by each municipal council, from among the voters of the communes.
Senators chosen by the Assembly were to be elected by _scrutin de
liste_ and by an absolute majority of votes. No one should be chosen
who had not attained the age of forty years, and who was not in
enjoyment of full civil and political rights. The seventy-five elected
by the Assembly were to retain their seats for life, vacancies that
should arise being filled by the Senate itself. All other members were
to be elected for nine years, being renewed by thirds every three
years.

[Footnote 473: Dodd, Modern Constitutions, I.,
288.]

*343. The Senate: Composition and Election To-day.*--The system thus
devised continues, in the main, in effect at the present day. The
principal variations from it are those introduced in a constitutional
law of December 9, 1884, whereby it was provided (1) that the
co-optative method of election should be abolished, and that, while
present life members should retain their seats as long as they should
live, all vacancies thereafter arising from the decease of such
members should be filled within the departments in the regular manner,
and (2) that the electoral college of the department should be
broadened to include not merely one delegate from each municipal
council, but from one to twenty-four (thirty in the case of Paris),