the judges), doctors of medicine, members and corresponding members of the Institute; members of other learned societies recognised by the government; and notaries after three years' exercise of their profession. It was wished also to augment this list with the elected members of the general councils of the department, &c.; but the chamber rejected all these additions, excepting that of retired officers receiving a pension of at least 1200 francs, and of members and corresponding members of the Institute, who were admitted under the singular condition that they should pay at least 100 francs in direct taxes. The qualification for all other electors was fixed at 200 francs (direct taxes); but the chamber has fixed the rate of eligibility at 500 francs (instead of 1000), which evidently leaves too little scope for the choice of the electors, as may be perceived by the composition.of the chamber.

We have but few other ameliorations in detail to point out. Thus, in future, the rent paid by the grantees of mines, and the annual licence fee paid by schoolmasters, will be reckoned as direct taxes; and there will likewise be included in the amount of such direct taxes, not only the direct taxes voted by the chambers, but also the additional taxes, voted according to law, for the municipal and departmental expences by the several councils.

The law of the 29th of June, 1820, enacted, that property, in order to qualify an elector or a deputy, should have been possessed at least a year before the convening of the electoral college. The law of 1831 merely requires that the property shall have been possessed before the annual revision of the electoral lists has commenced. This may be considered a slight improvement in the system of forming the electoral lists. Persons coming to the possession of the property by descent, or on the death of a tenant for life, continue exempt from the regulation with regard to possession for a year.

But one of the principal and happiest innovations of the new electoral law is that by which a third of the taxes paid by the landlord gives a qualification to his tenant, without affecting the landlord himself, provided the lease be regularly executed, that the term be for nine years at least, and that the tenant himself farms the land.

In those cases where, after all these regulations, the number of electors in an electoral arrondissement does not amount to one hundred and fifty, the law requires that this number shall be made up by conferring the franchise on such citizens as are the most highly taxed under 200 francs. And if it shall happen that there are several citizens paying an equal amount of taxes, the oldest shall be entered on the list of electors, to complete the number of one hundred and fifty; which number, in such case, must not be exceeded.

With regard to those who are eligible, the charter of 1830, like that of 1814, requires that there shall be at least fifty in each department, and that half the deputies of a department shall be chosen from those who are eligible, and who have their political domicile in the department. But there are, as we shall see, several electoral colleges in each department; and consequently, in fact, there may be fewer than fifty persons so eligible in each electoral college.

The number of deputies, which was, by the law of 1820, four hundred and thirty, has been increased, notwithstanding the suppression of the one hundred and seventy-two elected by the double vote, to four hundred and fifty-nine. But these deputies are not now, as by the law of 1817, elected by the electors assembled in the college of the department. Each of them is nominated by a special arrondissement, the extent of which is consequently very circumscribed. Many have blamed this extreme parcelling out of the country, and the system has been supposed likely to fill the chamber with mere provincial mediocrity.

The law of the 12th of September, 1830, has restored to the chances of re-election, any deputy appointed, since his election as deputy, to any public office of profit. The only exceptions to this regulation are, officers of the army or navy who shall have been promoted by right of seniority. And the law of the 19th of April, 1831, has proclaimed the absolute ineligibility of prefects, sub-prefects, receivers general and particular of finance, (that is to say, receivers for the departments and arrondissements), and paymasters in the departments. If these functionaries should quit office, either in consequence of being dismissed, or otherwise, they cannot be elected for the department or arrondissement in which they exercised their functions, till an interval of six months has elapsed, dating from the day on which their duties ceased. General officers having, in the interior, the military command of a portion of territory, called a division or subdivision, the procureurs generaux of the royal courts, the procureurs du roi, comptrollers of taxes, direct or indirect, commissioners of crown lands, of registration, and collectors of customs in the departments, cannot be elected deputies by the electoral college of any arrondissement comprised wholly or in part within the limits of their jurisdiction.

Such are the changes and principal regulations in the present composition of the legislative power in France. The law for the remodelling of the Chamber of Peers, which is at this time under consideration, will complete, on this head, the work of the revolution of July.

Next in importance to the laws which have cffected this change in the composition and organization of the electoral body,

and of the chambers, are doubtless those having for their object the departmental and municipal institutions. The law of municipal organization is, up to this time, the only one which has been brought forward. The present session will be occupied with the law of departmental organization, and with those regulating the municipal and departmental elective bodies. The municipal law, dated the 21st of March, 1831, leaves to the king, in communes containing three thousand inhabitants or upwards, and in the chief places of sub-prefecture, and to the prefects in all other communes, the nomination of the mayors and bailiffs, (adjoints); but it obliges them to choose their officers from amongst the common councilmen (conseillers municipaux), who shall in future be chosen by the electors of the commune.

The common council, and the mayors, and bailiffs, were previously nominated by the king, in all towns of 5000 inhabitants and upwards, and by the prefects in all the other communes.

The electors of the communes are, first, those citizens of the age of twenty-one years, who are rated highest on the list of direct taxes, in the proportion of one-tenth of the whole population of the commune. The third part of the direct taxes paid by the landlord, in respect of his real property, in this case also, as in the case of the election of deputies, confers a vote upon the tenant, without affecting the qualification of the landlord. There are then added, for every hundred inhabitants above a thousand, five electors (still the highest taxed), in those communes which have not more than five thousand inhabitants; four electors in towns or communes containing from five to fifteen thousand inhabitants; and, lastly, three electors (still for every hundred inhabitants above a thousand), in towns with more than fifteen thousand inhabitants. Such is the structure of the electoral assembly of a commune; and those citizens who may be summoned to it by a different title, as we shall presently see, vote there always in preference by their rate of taxation. They thus occupy the place which otherwise would naturally devolve on those below them.

But, independently of those who vote in respect of the payment of taxes, the law also opens the doors of the electoral assemblies to certain classes of persons whose capacity may be sufficiently presumed from their situation in life. This is the system which was rejected when proposed as part of the electoral law of the Chamber of Deputies, but afterwards admitted in the elections for municipal counsellors. This system, which formed a part of the electoral law, as brought forward by the minister in 1830, and which was adopted by the commission appointed for the preparatory examination of the projected law, and only rejected by the definitive vote of the chamber, formed also, up to a certain point, a feature of the lan (not yet discussed), brought forward on the 15th of Septem

ber, in this year, for the organization of the departments. That plan proposes to summon to the election of members of the departmental councils, the persons whose names are inserted in the second part of the jury lists, that is to say, jurors, who, from not being rated, are not qualified to vote in the election of deputies. Whatever may be the fate of this project, the circle drawn by the municipal law, is, at least, a little wider. It admits, as we have just explained, into the number of municipal electors, certain citizens, independently of the amount of taxation, whether in the commune or elsewhere.

The persons thus admitted, are:

1st. Citizens entitled to vote at elections for members of the chamber, deputies, and those (whoever they may be) who shall be entitled to take part in the election of members of the general councils of the department, provided that they have any connexion with the commune.

2d. Members of the courts and tribunals, justices of the peace or their deputies (suppléans), either domiciled, or possessing property in the commune.

3d. Members of the chambers of commerce, of the chambers of manufactures, and of the conseils de prud' hommes.

4th. Members of the committees of management of colleges, hospitals, and charitable institutions.

5th. Officers of the national guard.

6th. Members and corresponding members of the Institute (even though they should not pay the amount of a hundred francs in direct taxes), and members of learned societies, instituted or recognized by law.

7th. Doctors of one or more of the faculties of law, medicine, science, or letters, employed in teaching any branch of learning belonging to those faculties; advocates entered on the list; attornies belonging to the courts and tribunals; and notaries; that is, doctors after three years' residence, and licentiates and others after five years' practice and real residence in the commune.

8th. The pupils of the polytechnic school (who on leaving it have been either admitted, or declared admissible to public offices), after two years' real domicile in the commune.

To be in garrison is not accounted residence.

9th. All officers of the army or navy receiving any retiring pension.

10th. Superannuated functionaries of government or justice receiving a retiring pension, and officers in the civil or military service enjoying a retiring pension of not less than six hundred francs. Whatever the number of electors may be, that of the persons having their domicile in the commune must never be below thirty, unless there should not be a sufficient number of citizens paying

some personal tax, the most general of all the direct taxes. Thus every citizen so taxed is summoned in those places, where, joined to the other resident electors, the number shall still not exceed thirty.

The number of members of the municipal council varies, as we shall proceed to show, according to the population of the communes. But it must not be imagined that the electors of each commune unite together, either really or virtually, in one single electoral assembly, for the purpose of nominating the members of the municipal council of the commune. Here again the parcelling-out system prevails. Communes with fewer than 2500 souls having to nominate from ten to fifteen municipal counsellors, may, on the proposition of the general council of the department (which is still non-elective), and the municipal council being heard, be divided into sections, the number and limits of which are arbitrarily fixed by the prefect, who likewise settles the number of municipal counsellors to be nominated by each of them. It is clear then, that a majority of one vote in one of these sections, how small soever it may be, suffices, in order to make a member of the municipal council. In towns or communes of 2500 inhabitants and upwards, the law does not determine the maximum of the number, any more than the limits or boundary of the sections. This number must be such as that every section may have to nominate, in communes containing from 2500 to 10,000 souls, eight municipal counsellors at most, which supposes at least three sections, since the council of these communes must be composed of from 21 to 23 members. This subdivision may be carried much further still; for in strictness each section need only nominate one municipal counsellor, that is to say, as many sections may be made as there are municipal counsellors to be nominated.

In towns containing from 10,000 to 30,000 inhabitants, towns whose municipal council consists of 27 members, each section may only nominate at most six counsellors, which supposes five sections (twenty-seven at most). Finally, in towns of above 30,000 inhabitants, of which the municipal council must consist of at least 36 members, each section may only elect four counsellors, which supposes at least nine sections (36 to 40 at most), and yet a majority in one of these sections is sufficient to make a member of the municipal council.

The division into sections is regulated by the neighbourhood, in such a manner as to divide the number of voters as equally as possible among the sections. But the fixing of the number and limits of these sections is, as we have already said, left to the government. It will be seen that the obligation of choosing the mayor and bailiffs from amongst the members of the municipal council, is a very slight restraint on the choice of the king, or of his ministers