must be seriously
considered, but, first and above all, he is the recruiting officer
for voters. By virtue of this position and on this he treats with
the council general and the standing committee, with the municipal
councilors and mayors, with influential electors, but especially
with the small active committee which, in each commune, supports the
prevailing policy and offers its zeal to the government.

Give and take. These indispensable auxiliaries must obtain nearly all
they ask for, and they ask a great deal. Instinctively, as well as by
doctrine and tradition, the Jacobins are exacting, disposed to regard
themselves as the representatives of the real and the ideal people, that
is to say, as sovereigns by right, above the law, entitled to make it
and therefore to unmake it, or, at least, strain it and interpret it as
they please. Always in the general council, in the municipal council,
and in the mayoralty, they are tempted to usurp it; the prefect has as
much as he can do to keep them within the local bounds, to keep them
from meddling with state matters and the general policy; he is often
obliged to accept their lack of consideration, to be patient with them,
to talk to them mildly; for they talk and want the administration to
reckon with them as a clerk with his master; if they vote money for any
service it is on condition that they take part in the use of the funds
and in the details of the service, in the choice of contractors and in
hiring the workmen; on condition that their authority be extended and
their hands applied to the consecutive execution of what does not
belong to them but which belongs to the prefect.[4234] Bargaining,
consequently, goes on between them incessantly and they come to
terms.--The prefect, it must be noted, who is bound to pay, can do so
without violating the letter of the law. The stern page on which the
legislator has printed his imperative text is always provided with an
ample margin where the administrator, charged with its execution, can
write down the decisions that he is free to make. In relation to each
departmental or communal affair, the prefect can with his own hand write
out what suits him on the white margin, which, as we have already seen,
is ample enough; but the margin at his disposition is wider still and
continues, beyond anything we have seen, on other pages; he is charge
d'affaires not only of the department and commune, but again of the
State. Titular conductor