dsome salaries to these legislative offices, 10,000 f., 15,000
f., and 30,000 f. a year; parties canvass with it for these places the
very first day, the future depositaries of legislative power being, to
begin with, solicitors of the antechamber.--To render their docility
complete, there is a dismemberment of this legislative power in
advance; it is divided among three bodies, born feeble and passive by
institution. Neither of these has any initiative; their deliberations
are confined to laws proposed by the government. Each possesses only a
fragment of function; the "Tribunat" discusses without passing laws, the
"Corps Legislatif" decrees without discussion, the conservative"
Senat" is to maintain this general paralysis. "What do you want?" said
Bonaparte to Lafayette.[2121] "Sieyes everywhere put nothing but ghosts,
the ghost of a legislative power, the ghost of a judiciary, the ghost
of a government. Something substantial had to be put in their place. Ma
foi, I put it there," in the executive power.

There it is, completely in his hands; other authorities to him are
merely for show or as instruments.[2122] The mutes of the Corps
Legislatif come annually to Paris to keep silent for four months;
one day he will forget to convoke them, and nobody will remark their
absence.--As to the Tribunat, which talks too much, he will at first
reduce its words to a minimum "by putting it on the diet of laws;"
afterward, through the interposition of the senate, which designates
retiring members, he gets rid of troublesome babblers; finally, and
always through the interposition of the senate, titular interpreter,
guardian, and reformer of the constitution, he ventilates and then
suppresses the Tribunat itself.--The senate is the grand instrument
by which he reigns; he commands it to furnish the senatus-consultes of
which he has need. Through this comedy played by him above, and through
another complementary comedy which he plays below, the plebiscite, he
transforms his ten-year consulate into a consulate for life, and then
into an empire, that is to say, into a permanent, legal, full, and
perfect dictatorship. In this way the nation is handed over to the
absolutism of a man who, being a man, cannot fail to think of his own
interest before all others. It remains to be seen how far and for how
long a time this interest, as he comprehends it, or imagines it, will
accord with the interest of the public. All the better for France should