the authority which it has
created, _wishes to do everything itself_, to deliberate for the Senate,
to act for the magistrates, and to usurp the functions of the judges.
The people wishes to exclude the magistrates from their functions, and
the magistrates naturally are no longer respected. The deliberations of
the Senate are allowed to have no weight, and senators naturally fall
into contempt."

Let us translate the foregoing passage into the language of to-day.
Under democratic parliamentary government the representatives of the
people are determined to do everything themselves. They must be equal to
those whom they choose for their rulers. They cannot tolerate the
authority which they have entrusted to the Government. They must
themselves govern in the place of the Government, administer in the
place of the executive staff, substitute their own authority for that
of all the bench of judges, perform the duties of magistrates, and, in a
word, throw off all regard and respect for persons and things.

This is the true inwardness of the popular spirit, the will of the
people which wishes to do everything itself, or what is the same thing,
through its representatives, its faithful and servile creatures.

From this point onwards efficiency is hunted and exterminated in every
direction; just as it was excluded in the election of representatives,
so the representatives laboriously and continuously exclude it from
every sort of office and employment under the public service.

The Government, to begin our analysis of functional confusion at the
top, ought to be watched and advised by the national representatives,
but it ought to be independent of the national representatives, at least
it ought not to be inextricably mixed up with them, in other words the
national representatives ought not to govern. Under democracy this is
precisely what they want to do. They elect the Government, a privilege
which need not be denied them; but, "not being able to tolerate the
authority which they have created," as soon as they have set it up, they
put pressure on it and insist on governing continuously in its place.
The assembly of national representatives is not a body which makes laws,
but a body which, by a never ending string of questions and
interruptions, _dictates_ from day to day to the Government what it
ought to do, that is to say, it is a body which governs.

The country is governed, literally, by the Chamber of Deputies. _This