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Updated: May 27, 2025
"Can sub-prefects replace the poetic, gallant, warlike race of the Thibaults who made Provins what Ferrara was to Italy, Weimar to Germany, what Munich is trying to be to-day." "Was Provins ever a capital?" asked Rogron. "Why! where do you come from?" exclaimed the archaeologist.
The gallery, in the middle of which was the Imperial tent, was in front of the Military School, and was divided into sixteen parts, eight on each side, representing the sixteen cohorts of the Legion of Honor. A broad staircase led from this gallery to the Champ de Mars; the first step was for the presidents of cantons, the prefects, sub-prefects, and the members of the municipal councils.
Indeed, so little was there of effective self-government that France seems to have sighed with relief when order was imposed by Bonaparte in the person of a Prefect. This important official, a miniature First Consul, was to administer the affairs of the Department, while sub-prefects were similarly placed over the new arrondissements, and mayors over the communes.
The need to maintain order in the provinces occupied by the army led the Emperor, in spite of everything, to appoint prefects and sub-prefects who were chosen from the most enlightened Poles, but their administration was illusory and no help to the French army.
Let us suppose our ancient monarchy abolished, our independent hierarchy reduced to a stipendiary sect, the gentlemen of England deprived of their magisterial functions, and metropolitan prefects and sub-prefects established in the counties and principal towns, commanding a vigorous and vigilant police, and backed by an army under the immediate orders of a single House of Parliament.
How conservative are the French people, at least in the institutions of local government, may be inferred from the fact that despite many changes in France during the nineteenth century from republic to empire to monarchy to republic to empire to republic, Bonaparte's system of prefects and sub-prefects has survived to the present day.
Indeed, so little was there of effective self-government that France seems to have sighed with relief when order was imposed by Bonaparte in the person of a Prefect. This important official, a miniature First Consul, was to administer the affairs of the Department, while sub-prefects were similarly placed over the new arrondissements, and mayors over the communes.
The sub-prefect of Mortain is therefore in one sort to be envied above all sub-prefects, and even prefects too. Such functionaries are commonly quartered in some dull spot in the middle of a town. The sub-prefect of Mortain dwells, and doubtless goes through the duties of his sub-prefecture, in a fair house in a fair garden.
Picture him in a cocked hat and a uniform bedizened with gold lace, and with a slender sword dangling by his side. That, at all events, was how sub-prefects and prefects used to array themselves when 'in the exercise of their functions. I doubt of M. Zola would ever have made a good functionary.
He then said to me, "Bourrienne, I give up your department to you. Name whom you please for the appointments; but remember you must be responsible to me." What a list would have been which should contain the names of all the prefects, sub-prefects, receivers-general, and other civil officers to whom I gave places!
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