f the Garde des Sceaux, is at once a council of the government by its
participation in the drawing up of laws, a council of administration,
and the highest of administrative juridical bodies. It deliberates in
two sections, in _Assemblee Generale_ and in _Assemblee du Contentieux_.
The Conseil General de la Seine, which holds its sessions in its chamber
at the Hotel de Ville, is composed of eighty municipal councillors of
Paris and twenty-one general councillors elected by the cantons of the
banlieue. The Conseil Municipal, which also sits at the Hotel de Ville,
is elected from the twenty arrondissements of the city, one from each
quarter, for four years, and corresponds to the Conseils of the Communes
in the departments. The Prefet de la Seine and the Prefet de Police have
the right of attendance at its sittings and of being heard whenever
they wish. In the Palais du Tribunal de Commerce, the Conseil de
Prefecture de la Seine holds its sittings and occupies itself with a
great variety of municipal matters confided to its jurisdiction by law.

In the capital, the executive power, which in the other communes of
France is confided to the Maires, is exercised by the two Prefets, of
the Seine and of Police, who are thus invested with the triple character
of representatives of the State, of the Administration of the Department
of the Seine, and of superior officers of the State performing the
duties of Maire of Paris. Those divisions of the municipal
administration which depend directly upon the Prefecture of the Seine
are located in various buildings,--in the Hotel de Ville itself, in the
_Annexe Est_, the old caserne Lobau, just across the Place Lobau, in the
_Annexe Nord_, on the Place de l'Hotel de Ville and the Avenue Victoria,
and at numerous other localities throughout the city. The balls of the
Hotel de Ville--which are a portion of the municipal administration--have
recently been replaced by more frequent receptions, at which there is
always dancing and a concert.

The administration of the Prefecture de Police is divided into three
Bureaux, the first of which is closely connected with the cabinet of the
Prefet, and the two others constitute the first and the second
divisions. The first Bureau is divided into four sections, and the
second into two, each of these subdivisions having its special
department. The Commissaires de Police are municipal officers appointed
in Paris by a decree of the President of the Republi