his will, retarded for a time the influence of
bureaucracy (that ponderous curtain hung between the service to be
done and the man who orders it), it was permanently organized under
the constitutional government, which was, inevitably, the friend of
all mediocrities, the lover of authentic documents and accounts, and as
meddlesome as an old tradeswoman. Delighted to see the various ministers
constantly struggling against the four hundred petty minds of the
Elected of the Chamber, with their ten or a dozen ambitious and
dishonest leaders, the Civil Service officials hastened to make
themselves essential to the warfare by adding their quota of assistance
under the form of written action; they created a power of inertia and
named it "Report." Let us explain the Report.

When the kings of France took to themselves ministers, which first
happened under Louis XV., they made them render reports on all important
questions, instead of holding, as formerly, grand councils of state with
the nobles. Under the constitutional government, the ministers of the
various departments were insensibly led by their bureaus to imitate this
practice of kings. Their time being taken up in defending themselves
before the two Chambers and the court, they let themselves be guided by
the leading-strings of the Report. Nothing important was ever brought
before the government that a minister did not say, even when the case
was urgent, "I have called for a report." The Report thus became, both
as to the matter concerned and for the minister himself, the same as
a report to the Chamber of Deputies on a question of laws,--namely, a
disquisition in which the reasons for and against are stated with more
or less partiality. No real result is attained; the minister, like
the Chamber, is fully as well prepared before as after the report is
rendered. A determination, in whatever matter, is reached in an instant.
Do what we will, the moment comes when the decision must be made. The
greater the array of reasons for and against, the less sound will be
the judgment. The finest things of which France can boast have been
accomplished without reports and where decisions were prompt and
spontaneous. The dominant law of a statesman is to apply precise formula
to all cases, after the manner of judges and physicians.

Rabourdin, who said to himself: "A minister should have decision, should
know public affairs, and direct their course," saw "Report" rampant
throughout Fr