Sub-prefect

“ Except those in the department of the Seine, and three containing the capitals of departments elsewhere, each has in its chief town a sub-prefect, who serves as a district representative of the prefect. Every one has a conseil d'arrondissement, or arrondissement council, consisting of at least nine members, elected by manhood suffrage for a term of six years. ”

“ After some little difficulty the Sub-prefect succeeded in putting the machinery together, and, leaving his men to work it, descended with me to the bedroom. The smothering canopy was then lowered, but not so noiselessly as I had seen it lowered. When I mentioned this to the Sub-prefect, his answer, simple as it was, had a terrible significance. "My men," said he, "are working down the bed-top for the first time—the men whose money you won were in better practise." ”

“ Unluckily, Governments cannot be enlightened, and a Government which regards itself as a diffuser of light is the least open to enlightenment. What we have done for our canton, every mayor ought, of course, to do for his; the magistrate should work for his town, the sub-prefect for his district, the prefect for the department, and the minister for France, each acting in his own sphere of interest. ”

“ As the prefect in the department, so the sub-prefect in the arrondissement, though with a more limited power, is the representative of the central authority. He is assisted, and in some degree controlled, in his work by the district council (conseil d’arrondissement) , to which each canton sends a member, chosen by universal suffrage. As the arrondissement has neither property nor budget, the principal business of the council is to allot to each commune its share of the direct taxes imposed on the arrondissement by the general council. ”

“ Consequently, while he was drafting it he also undertook the enormous task of the administrative, judicial, and financial reorganisation of France. The various powers were centralised in Paris. Each department was directed by a prefect, assisted by a consul-general; the arrondissement by a sub- prefect, assisted by a council; the commune by a mayor, assisted by a municipal council. All were appointed by the ministers, and not by election, as under the Republic. ”

“ The sub-prefectural head-man may also take upon himself, in case of emergency, any of the functions falling within the competence of the sub-prefectural assembly, provided that he reports the fact to the assembly and seeks its sanction at the earliest possible opportunity. ”

“ The national executive appoints and removes the prefects of the departments and the sub-prefects of the provinces, and the prefects appoint the gobiernadores of the districts. The police officials throughout the republic are also appointees of the president and are under his orders. ”

“ In cases where, by the effect of omissions, of void or double nominations, the list of candidates proposed by the colleges of arrondissements shall be incomplete, if the list is reduced below half the number required, the college of department shall choose another deputy not in the list; if the list is reduced below a fourth, the college of department may elect beyond the whole of the deputies of department.
15. The prefects, sub-prefects, and the general officers commanding military divisions and departments, are not to be elected in the departments where they exercise their functions. ”

“ In each district also there is a head-man, but his post is always elective and generally non-salaried. He occupies towards a district assembly the same position that the sub-prefecture head-man holds towards a sub-prefectural assembly. Over the governors stands the minister for home affairs, who discharges general duties of superintendence and sanction, has competence to delete any item of a local budget, and may, with the emperor’s consent, order the dissolution of a local assembly, provided that steps are taken to elect and convene another within three months. ”

“ VI. The Primary School Inspectors; VII. The Archbishops, Bishops, and Vicars General; VIII. The General Paymasters and Special Receivers of Money; IX. The Supervisors of Direct and Indirect Taxes, of Registration of Lands, and of Posts; X. The Guardians and Inspectors of Forests. The Sub-Prefects shall not be elected in any of the arrondissements of the department where they perform their duties. ARTICLE 13. Every imperative mandate is null and void. ARTICLE 14. Members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected by single districts. Each administrative arrondissement shall elect one deputy. ”

“ So it came about that the old ajun class became a sort of hereditary advisorship to the local prefects in each district.
Each prefecture is a miniature of the central government. The prefect becomes, as it were, the king of his little state, and the ajuns are his ministers. So closely is the resemblance carried out that each prefect has his six ministers; namely, of Interior, Finance, Ceremonies, War, Law and Industries. It is through these men that all the business is performed. The emperor can change his cabinet at will, and has thousands from whom to choose, but the prefect has no choice. ”

“ They need the prefect's signature almost every day to stamp some official act; they require government grants for the maintenance of schools, roads and other purposes in their communes; they dare not offend the prefects, under penalty of having men appointed as rural constables, mayors' secretaries and letter-carriers who shall be so many enemies of the mayors and shall thwart them at every step. The prefect thus exercises enormous influence in every commune, both over the mayor and the lower class of appointees. ”

“ The prefect, however, is no more than an intend ant in miniature, being only at the head of a department, whereas the intend ant was over a généralité, which was a much larger district. In the same way the sous-préfets correspond to the subdélégués of the intend ants, with the difference that they are actual officials subordinate to the prefects, while the subdélégués were merely the representatives with whom the intend ants provided themselves, and to whom they gave powers. ”

“ The sous-préfets, having very limited powers of deciding questions, serve above all as intermediaries between the prefect and the persons under his administration. This function was most useful in the year VIII., when communications were difficult, even within a department, but nowadays it only leads to complications. As a matter of fact their chief service to the administration lies in keeping up good relations with the maires of the communes in their arrondissement, and thus acquiring a certain amount of influence over them. ”

“ If either a governor or a prefect has appropriated to his own use the corvée, or has accepted and sent on the king's service a hired substitute in his place, that governor, or prefect, shall be put to death. ”

“ Henceforth, and forever, bread is taken out of his mouth; if he has it to-day, it is lacking on the morrow. Now, every three months, the list of succursalists at five hundred francs drawn up by the bishop, must be countersigned by the prefect. In his upper cabinet, near the mantelpiece on which the visiting-cards of every considerable personage in the department are displayed, facing the emperor's bust, the two delegates of the emperor, his two responsible and judicial managers, the two superintended overseers of the conscription, confer together on the ecclesiastical staff of the department. ”

“ Each local administration was a consulate in miniature. Every department had its prefect, every arrondissement its subprefect, every commune its mayor. These officials were all appointed by the executive, and were subordinate to the minister of the interior. Each had an advising associate appointed from the electoral lists; and the various councils, some likewise appointed, some, however, elected, were in ordinary times only the registers of the decrees sent down from above. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Die I may, but I will never consent to degrade my office and turn aside the course of justice for the sake of filthy lucre.” At this outbreak the Prefect changed his tone, and tried to soothe him.... [How dare people accuse the age of being corrupt, when it is themselves who will not walk in the straight path.] One day after this a certain fox-medium [339] came to the Prefect’s yamên just as a feast was in full swing, and was thus addressed by a guest:—“You who pretend to know everything, say how many officials there are in this Prefecture.” ”

“ All citizens made way for them, and dismounted when they passed, and rose in their presence. The prætors, too, continued to be the supreme judges, and the quæstors regulated the treasury. The tribunes existed also, but without their former independence. The prefect of the city was a new office, and overshadowed all other offices—appointed by the emperor as his lieutenant, his most efficient executive minister, his deputy in his absence from the city. ”

“ The Prefect is the representative of the Government at a local level and shall direct the decentralized public services of ministries and other bodies of the central public administration in the territorial-administrative units. The powers of the Prefect shall be established by an organic law. ”

“ The Praefecture.
'All men have known you as Praefect of the Praetorian throne, a dignity which all other public employments wait upon like lacqueys. For from this high office, ways and means for the army are demanded; from this, without any regard for the difficulty of the [Pg 135] times, the food of the people is required; on this, a weight of judicial responsibility is thrown, which would be by itself a heavy burden. Now the law, which has thrown this immense load on the Praefect's office, has, on the other hand, honoured him by putting almost all things under his control. ”

“ But the praefectus vigilum, commander of the city guards, who was subordinate to him, became an independent officer, entitled Drungary of the Watch, and in the 11th century superseded him as vice president of the imperial court. We are told that in the last years of the Empire the Prefect of the City had no functions at all; but his office survives in the Shehr-imaneti, “city prefecture,” of the Ottomans, in whose organization there are many traces of Byzantine influence. ”

“ The Deputy is above the Assistant, the Commissioner above the Deputy, the Lieutenant-Governor above the Commissioner, and the Viceroy above all four, under the orders of the Secretary of State, who is responsible to the Empress. If the Empress be not responsible to her Maker—if there is no Maker for her to be responsible to—the entire system of Our administration must be wrong. Which is manifestly impossible. ”

“ Pref′atory, pertaining to a preface: serving as an introduction: introductory. [Fr. préface—L. præfatio—præ, before, fāri, fatus, to speak.]
Prefect, prē′fekt, n. one placed in authority over others: a commander: the administrative head of a modern French department.—ns. Prē′fectship, his office or jurisdiction; Prē′fecture, the office or district of a prefect: the house occupied by a prefect. [Fr. préfet—L. præfectus, pa.p. of præficĕre—præ, over, facĕre, to make.] ”

“ It is to be hoped that, in these days, when we all take an interest in our Empire, everybody knows that the Executive Council is the outward, visible, and recognised form of that impalpable, unrecognised, all-powerful institution, the Cabinet, consisting in fact, though not in theory, of the same persons, save that the Governor is present when the meeting is of the Council, and absent when it is of the Cabinet—a difference of less moment than it sounds, seeing that, except in extreme cases, the Governor has little to do but listen to what is going to be done. ”

“ The emperor is assisted in the discharge of his executive duties by a prime minister and nine department ministers; besides these he has the advice of a privy council, composed of elder statesmen, of which Marquis Ito is now the president.
Each state has what corresponds to our legislature, and each city has a council; both of these bodies are elective and to the city council is entrusted the selection of the mayor.
They have a judiciary, federal and local, appointed for life, but no jury system. ”

“ In case the mayor and president shall be absent from any meeting of the common council, they shall proceed to elect a temporary presiding officer, who, for the time being, shall discharge the duties of mayor. The president, or temporary presiding officer, while presiding over the council or performing the duties of mayor, shall be styled 'acting mayor,' and acts performed by them shall have the same force and validity as if performed by the mayor.' 'Chapter 3, § 3. ”

“ The prefets of the departments, and sous-prefets of districts, are nominated by the king, subject to approval by the chamber of deputies. The communal chiefs and councils are elected by the people over whom they are to preside. ”

“ It is natural that Prefects, under Prefects, Commissaries of Prefecture, should have been more than concerned, and that at head quarters they should have kept watch all night, giving orders on all the lines, awakening every body, and mobilitating every thing. ”