This post is a part of the 2024 Selected Papers of the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, which were edited and compiled by members of the CRE’s board alongside editors at Age of Revolutions
Abraham Claudio Man
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Juvenal (55 C.E. – 140 C.E.).[1]
Few historical events have been as consequential as those that took place on 26 August 1789. On that day, through the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the French National Constituent Assembly proclaimed the abolition of the last legal privileges enjoyed by the nobility, sanctioned the end of absolutism, and consecrated, among what it defined as natural, civil rights, the opening of public employment and dignities to all citizens according to their abilities, without any other distinction than their virtues and talents.[2] On 4 August 1789, the people’s representatives abolished feudalism, taking one more step toward establishing freedom and equality under the law for all the nation’s citizens.[3]
This affirmation, later enshrined in the preamble of the Constitution of 1791 and sanctioned in Title 1, was inspired by the rationalist ideas upheld by the physiocrats and philosophes of the Enlightenment.[4] Opening government jobs to merit brought about a profound transformation in France and, by extension, in Europe’s political and social environment, reverberating throughout the world during the following decades.[5] Yet, despite its promises, building a meritocracy was perhaps the tallest order that the Enlightenment rationalists had placed before the new and inexperienced political class. The present study argues that the revolutionary leaders overpromised or underdelivered this highly popular, albeit elusive, proposition.
This inquiry examines the multi-faceted, complex nature of the problem and the protocols deployed by French policymakers to address the most critical issues that haunted public administrators, focusing mainly on the timeframe between the Declaration’s sanction and the fall of the Napoleonic regime. The mission solemnly proclaimed in 1789 was to build a more just and fair society, not just for a minority but for all. However, judiciously administering state resources required not only praiseworthy ideals but a swift, efficient, and effective execution, lest the momentum be lost for the middle class and the revolution’s enemies seize power again, leveraging the economic power of the aristocracy and pairing it with the logical frustration of a hungry, impatient, and anxious populace.
While during the Ancien Régime, the bourgeoisie was already engaged in certain governmental activities, it did so mainly at the lower levels of the administration, in a supporting role.[6] The upper positions in government were reserved for aristocrats or members of the ecclesiastical order. The mere possibility of witnessing men of humble origins accessing high-level positions in the nation’s administration was almost unimaginable then.[7] Even the straightforward definition of “government jobs open to all citizens” was subject to interpretation and debate.
Before the Revolution, a public office was a marketable property as much as a royal commission; many were merely created to provide revenue to the exhausted treasury and could be described as a long-term loan to the crown funded by the bureau’s purchaser.[8] Amidst this backdrop of patrimonialism, the people’s representatives declaimed a path to build a new social order through public education and democracy. The venal officeholder was gone, and the fonctionnaire, the political appointee, was ushered in. With it came a new organizational model, specialized, centralized, and broadly influential, predicated on a level of professionalism and subject to a demand for efficacy previously unknown.[9] This new era of public service would require, in addition to eloquent and enlightened elected officials, a legion of career public servants recruited from all corners of society who would sustain and support the state in the long term, regardless of the whims of the electorate.[10] To effect this unprecedented change in the administration’s workforce, a significant reform in various fields of learning was required, particularly in civics and natural sciences. Emulating Plato’s Republic and, to some extent, inspired by the centuries-old system of public office examinations in China, the political class strived to find an answer to the challenge.[11] To achieve such an ambitious goal, a revamped curriculum and broader access to institutions of higher learning for the newly empowered citizens, combined with objective and fair evaluations, would be needed.
The end was clear, but charting the road and reaching the destination entailed a formidable effort. Despite the laudable intention of the legislators, the Déclaration placed those responsible for implementing the new laws in front of a genuine dilemma that keeps public officials concerned even today. In practical terms, who would be the subject of the redesigned public education system, and who would pay for it? How would it grow to become genuinely egalitarian? Which parameters could recruiters use to identify candidates or measure, compare, and rank virtues and talents? How to evaluate and select candidates for government jobs with divergent backgrounds, not only in terms of intelligence, experience, and formal education, but also political affiliation, upbringing, resources, or social connections? Furthermore, beyond hiring, how to compensate, motivate, and retain public servants? How to discipline and dismiss poor performers while minimizing arbitrary personnel management decisions?
In the words of General Charles De Gaulle, politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.[12] It follows that the business of government, particularly at the highest levels of the administration, requires highly trained, competent public servants who genuinely desire to serve the public professionally. Considering the critical nature of government, including, but not limited to, foreign relations, national defense, law enforcement, monetary and fiscal policy, public education, regulatory matters, etc., the topic is not trivial. Great powers could boast an efficient government apparatus as an enabler of grand strategy. Conversely, failure by the Executive branch of government to harness the full power of the state could be correlated with, and often attributed to, the decline of individual regimes or even whole polities.[13]
Yet, the government’s bureaucracy is frequently equated to a machine designed to impede progress, and its members are described as automatons. The researcher must question the actual meaning and attainability of the goal as much as the intellectual honesty of the program’s advocates. Bitter theoretical debates about the need to compromise on quality and find a balance between the added value of individual expertise and the utilitarian perspective that looks at the overall social impact of hiring decisions could confuse decision-makers and political scientists by clouding and blurring the terms of reference.
Legislative improvements, including modernization in taxation and public administration, jointly with public education reform, became an imperative of the highest order in France.[14] This was so because French society had lived in a caste system for centuries with limited interaction between three Estates: the Catholic Church, the royal nobility, and everybody else. Improving public policy outcomes was essential to satisfy the aspirations of a more assertive bourgeoisie and to meet the basic needs of the impoverished Gallic masses. Opening public employment to all qualified aspirants would put the revolutionary tenets of liberté, égalité, et fraternité to the test. The political parties emerging in this revolutionary period required the nation to muster les meillleurs, the best and brightest: men of talent, ideals, integrity, and knowledge, called to lead and execute their transformative mission.[15] Such a vision placed mediocrity at the opposite end of a meritocratic government.[16]
Interestingly, while a flurry of early retirements and transfers took place at the beginning, the core structure and size of the public administration changed little. This reflects the need to rely on the years of experience and technical expertise of those at the lower echelons of the bureaucratic machinery and the initial expectation that the regime was not going to experience a fundamental change.[17] Even though France had a mature bureaucracy at the time of the revolution, especially compared to other countries, it was far from operating as a rational organization with standard procedures, a clear division of labor, a stable structure, defined career paths, and a pure technical orientation.[18] On the contrary, it took months to curb the flaws of the old order, among them a recruitment policy based on nepotism and patronage, venality, a charismatic leadership style, politically motivated decision-making, and arbitrary personnel administration. For certain witnesses and chroniclers of the era who observed how the nobility resigned itself to, and even supported, the more moderate democratic reforms, the nature of the transition called into question the actual need to destroy the old institutions rather than enhance them with common-sense, sensible measures, avoiding violence and a waste of valuable resources.[19]
Against all odds, and despite the initial difficulties and political brinkmanship, by the spring of 1792, the target of a more open society appeared within reach. Indeed, during the following months, the collapse of the constitutional monarchy and the onset of war against Austria and Prussia accelerated the centralization of power and bureaucratic rationalization.[20] It coincided with the increasing dominance of the Society of the Friends of the Constitution and the emergence of the Jacobin regime. However, the pioneers’ dreams and hopes were quickly trounced by many of the same ills that plagued the monarchy: a thick tangle of red tape, financial and fiscal mismanagement leading to high inflation and scandalous bankruptcies, the virtual disappearance of the Assignat as legal tender, and numerous cases of corruption and fraud stemming from poor controls or conflicts of interest.[21] Behind these growing pains, finding an underlying cause of the government’s failing actions was not complicated: confusion due to constantly changing legislation, lack of clear regulations, and the relegation of ethics for self-preservation. Patronage and corruption found willing agents among the novel holders of political power. As a logical consequence, clashes between elected leaders and the ministerial bureaucracy regarding how to employ state authority became rife and endemic to the system.[22]
Realistically, the initial excitement and optimism were more an expression of wishful thinking than the result of a rational assessment. Behind the resounding words and declamations about equality, the risk of replacing the old aristocracy with an oligarchy of property and talent loomed, reflecting that the élites did not resign themselves to lose their privileges entirely.[23] Like any major, fundamental change, it would require a considerable time, measured in decades, to take root and function efficiently and effectively. The ambitious agenda set forth by the founding fathers of the French Revolution required constancy of purpose, an unrelenting effort over the long haul, and a firm commitment to the cause.
Weeks only after the sanctioning of the Déclaration, on 14 December 1789, to break the old ruling system, the Assembly launched an administrative reform by creating fresh jurisdictions. [24] Eighty-three redrawn Départements replaced the former Recettes Générales or Généralités.[25] Sending a clear signal of Paris’ supremacy over the provincial governments, a new magistrate, the Procureur-général-syndic, assumed the responsibility to enforce the law of the land and replaced the royal Intendants at the helm of the redesigned territories.[26] On 27 April 1791, the central government reorganized and placed the state’s administration under six ministries: Finances, Foreign Affairs, Interior, Justice, Navy, and War.[27] These offices were supplemented by the Département de la Maison du Roi, which was in charge of the royal household until King Louis XVI’s fall in August 1792.
On the educational front, Gaspard Monge, a respected Mathematician, jointly with the engineers Lazare Carnot and Jacques-Élie Lamblardie, founded the École Centrale des Travaux Publics on 28 September 1794, renamed École Polytechnique a year later. It became a model of excellence in education, given its academic standards, discerning admission process, and career prospects for its graduates, many of whom joined the army ranks as senior officers or the upper echelons of public administration. [28] This was followed by the creation of the École Normale on 30 October 1794, under the sponsorship of the Deputies to the National Convention, Joseph Lakanal and Dominique-Joseph Garat.[29] The latter began offering short courses to inexperienced bureaucrats and up-and-coming democratic leaders. Initially, the École Normale was designed to provide specialized courses of short duration to educate provincial students, who would then teach them in their places of origin. More than a thousand pupils registered, although only a fraction completed the program. The instructors were highly reputable intellectuals and scientists (e.g., Berthollet, Lagrange, Laplace, La Harpe, Monge, Volney, etc.) Eventually, it became a permanent institution to train elementary school teachers (i.e., maîtres d’école).
The new educational institutions were a necessary addition to the existing network of regional military academies and the prestigious École Militaire in Paris. All of them provided the state with an excellent pool of graduates eager to join the ranks of the Parisian bureaucracy.[30] Notwithstanding, the progression of democratization was limited and slow, in no small part due to the rigid nature of the state’s organization but fundamentally because of frequent policy changes and a gradual return to corporativism.
To conform with the general will, the members of the Legislature expected that equality would be achieved through comprehensive reform. Better legislation, impartial courts of justice, the previously noted effort in public education, and broader access to a growing number of job opportunities in the private and public sectors would deliver the prize. Fraternity was a more theoretical term and not yet at the center of public debate. Still, attaining inclusion for women and religious or racial minorities was not unthinkable, at least for some representatives, among them the Marie-Jean de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, and Maximilian Robespierre.[31] The foremost goal was to produce a generation of citizens that could translate revolutionary ideals into tangible achievements regarding economic development, abolition of privileges, a fair taxation system, and social progress. During the days preceding the revolution, as petitions and complaints poured into Versailles, the Cahiers de doléances reflected these objectives as a common desire shared by the bourgeoisie and the nobility, albeit with different interpretations and scope.[32]
However, as the situation deteriorated and divisions multiplied, the frequent swings in direction created doubts about leadership succession, increasing tensions and devolving into a higher level of uncertainty regarding policy outcomes. This ambiguity created new conditions that forced the political élite to change course. The need to keep the government running and the royalists at bay forced the more moderate representatives to search for ways to compromise behind the scenes without exposing themselves to accusations of treason and betrayal. One avenue they found to resist the more radical factions was through the state bureaucracy.[33]
Indeed, already under the Ancien Régime, the government business was conducted through what became known as Les Grands Corps de l’État. These large bodies of unelected officials operated through multiple vectors. The ones with deeper roots and traditions were the ancient Cour de Comptes, responsible for budgets and accounting, and the Conseil d’État, a sounding board for the King, which, after the monarchy, also drafted legislation for the highest political leadership in the nation. In addition, the Corps Préfectoral, the successor of the Corps d’Intendants, and the Corps Diplomatique embodied the state’s domestic authority and the external representation of the central power, respectively.[34] Also, several technical Corps influenced and administered other areas of government, mostly related to infrastructure. Among them are the Ponts et Chausées, responsible for transportation, and the Corps de Mines, administering mineral resources and major projects.[35] It is important to note that France is not a federation. As a unitary state with a decentralized government, the Grands Corps had a country-wide authority that enabled them to influence provincial government actions, thus playing a critical role in the administrative decision-making process throughout the whole territory.
Initially, as advisors of the monarch, later as instruments of the Executive branch, these institutions held sway by virtue not only of their legal statutes but also as cultural icons, an object of cult, and a career objective for many young men of the bourgeoisie and the ci-devant nobility. The system was designed to appeal to a homogenous stream of applicants. Indeed, there were few employment opportunities a father of the privileged classes would wish his son to have other than becoming a haut-fonctionnaire de l’état. The sources of attraction were numerous: an adequate salary, enough to make ends meet at least, but more importantly, job security, a pension, and, as prominently, prestige. Napoleon Bonaparte recognized the benefits of a solid and influential bureaucracy. So, it provided Les Grands Corps with more precise statutes and role definitions, a payroll scale, and a career path, seeking to enable it with considerable autonomy and limited exposure to judicial interference.[36]
To join, after completing high school and passing the baccalaureate examination, an aspirant had to obtain an advanced degree from a highly reputable institution of advanced learning and contend against other candidates with similar qualifications through the “concours,” a competition in front of a committee that held the keys to admission. Until the masses became educated enough to compete for positions in government on an equal footing with former career officials, most recruits came from recently ennobled families of magistrates or experienced civilian administrators. The high bar to entry functioned as a filter that, on the one hand, increased the probability of recruiting competent candidates but, on the other, restricted the chances of progress for those with limited financial means or connections. This issue became increasingly contentious as the institutions became ossified with individuals who gradually operated as members of a privileged guild, with more incentive to keep the status quo than striving to improve their individual or organizational performance. While the election of public officials was the primary vehicle that the revolutionary leaders planned to use to replace the old oligarchy, an aristocracy of notables, or state nobility, formed. This phenomenon was intensely criticized by social scientists and, more broadly, by the French intelligentsia as time passed, as evidence of dysfunction and inequality became more apparent in parallel with a growing influence of powerful social groups.[37]
This emerging new social class, proud and conspicuous, in Robert Gildea’s words, the “children of the revolution,” posed new questions and opened old wounds.[38] For those Jacobins hoping for a complete change in the political balance of power leading to an egalitarian society, the multiple regime changes that followed the period known as Le règne de la Terreur between September 1793 and July 1794 brought about the rule of the haut-bourgeoisie which came to replace the old aristocracy. The new questions demanded if opening jobs to talent and virtue as opposed to birth would truly bring prosperity to the masses. The old wounds started to bleed again when the new civil class holding power, allied with a sector of the military, became the new nobility during the apex of the First Empire.
Men like the Duke de Parma, Jean-Jacques-Régis de Cambacérès, second consul and later archchancellor during the empire, or Count Pierre-Antoine-Bruno Daru, Minister of War Administration and Intendent Général de la Grande Armée, were shining examples of technical experts with remarkable dedication and professionalism, but with limited or no charisma. Coincidentally, both were born in Montpellier and developed their expertise working for the Ancien Régime. Equally, they were former members of the growing population segment broadly defined as the noblesse de robe. They belonged to families who owed their titles and tax exemptions to the monarchy and had entered the lower levels of the aristocracy mainly by purchasing a royal office, thus challenging the feudal structure centered on the old noble families classed inthe noblesse de epée and alienating them in no small measure.[39]
Despite their unglamorous origins, thanks to their classical schooling and desire to excel in their field, these early bureaucrats epitomized the meritocratic public servant, an ancestor of the present-day technocrat. Similarly, they threaten the social and financial privileges derived from blood relations by gaining influence through broad experience and long work hours. These standout professionals were part of a minority of officials that excelled compared to a large legion of venal officeholders who held their acquired positions in a bloated bureaucracy filled with duplicated offices, mainly to collect their emoluments and enjoy special perquisites without producing incremental value for the crown. Many secretarial positions, for instance, were infamous for their inefficacy and lack of purpose. Indeed, during the reign of Louis XVI, France had over 51,000 venal offices, making it almost impossible for the king to suppress them without adequate monetary compensation at a time when the treasury was essentially bankrupt.[40]
Daru and Cambacérès served the nation’s political leaders as part of a renovated bureaucratic state, beyond partisan banners or grand personal ambitions. [41] Another Languedocian, General Jean-de-Dieu Soult, First Duke of Dalmatia, one of Napoleon’s marshals, offers yet another example of a career public servant who, over several decades, first in the army and later in the central government, served the nation in various senior positions, including Prime Minister. This he did despite his modest origins. A young orphan, the eldest son of a country notary, Soult rose through the ranks thanks to his talents and education.
In 1802, consistent with his long-term ambitions, the emperor, in what his admirers deemed an astute political move, declared an amnesty and welcomed the return of the courtiers of old to expand his support base and neutralize a powerful opposition. In parallel, he bestowed noble titles upon his closest civilian collaborators and military associates. Bonaparte oscillated between his concern with counting on the best and brightest to run the government and his quest for loyalty and fidelity. During the Consulate and the Empire, through several amendments to the Constitution of Year VIII, Napoleon increased the weight of the Conseil d’État to review and push forward his projects, sidelining the legislature and giving supremacy to a technocratic administration. In 1803, Napoleon added a small unit of fourteen auditors to the Conseil d’État. From this initial kernel, by 1809, the group had expanded to about four hundred young apprentices who would eventually become part of the professional staff in the administration. In parallel, the emperor established a set of examinations and competitions to grant promotions. This trend solidified the relevance of state bureaucracy to the point that it has become a fundamental pillar and a unique feature of France’s government to this day.[42] These various constitutional changes, despite claims to the contrary, created in practice a schism between the initially stated goal of truly opening all jobs to merit and virtue and the reality on the ground, where a scant minority, generally members of the new nobility or the haut-bourgeoisie, was able to finance the investment required to succeed in the grueling examinations and the subsequent concours, thus essentially perpetuating the novel status quo by stratifying the civil service.[43]
In conclusion, the research shows that the formal elimination of restrictions to access government jobs was implemented with only partial success, in no small measure, due to the uneven quality of public education and a system that limited upward mobility. Manifold, well-purposed, and carefully designed attempts at developing a government bureaucracy opened to talent and virtue did not fully achieve the dreams and aspirations of the ideologues of liberalism and enlightened philosophy. During the Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Age, the multiple initiatives spearheaded by the Committee of Public Safety, the Directory, the Consulate, and the First Empire enhanced the quality of public administration since they enabled successive governments to function independently of political oscillations while contributing to the development of a modern industrial economy and a rise in the standard of living of the population.
The French experience was not unique. Prussia, Austria, Great Britain, and other powers of the age faced the challenge of a sprawling state increasingly reliant on a large bureaucracy. This trend brought about an exponential growth in a nation’s legal, tax, and regulatory framework. Enforcement and control requirements demanded more resources, an effective tax collection process, and better accounting. Frequent armed conflicts between European powers also accelerated the push for efficiency in the military. Britain addressed these questions with a radical educational reform during the XIX century, expanding its resource base by admitting commoners to the most exclusive Universities under very stringent and competitive conditions. Austria had already launched a major effort to expand public education under Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. Initially, Prussia lagged behind its rivals due to a general limitation in labor and a reluctance of the crown and the junkers to accept and share responsibilities with the bourgeoisie. Still, after the battle of Jena-Auerstedt, the situation changed, enabling the promulgation of the Edict of October 1807, sponsored by Karl Freiherr vom Stein and Karl August von Hardenberg, implemented in the academic field by Wilhelm von Humboldt. The edict resulted in the admission of children of the bourgeoisie in institutions of higher education and the government’s administration. These countries faced the same issues that had surfaced in France. The government’s bureaucracy became entrenched and tended to pursue its own interests, occasionally even against the political élite’s and the electorate’s will. It had difficulty adapting to changing economic or social conditions because procedures and hierarchies made them inflexible by design.
However, the program fell short of designing a dynamic, effective, and efficient instrument of public policy, gravitating towards a closed, self-absorbed, and sometimes vain or apathetic organization. At the nineteenth century’s end, philosophers, sociologists, and political scientists expressed concern that the state bureaucracy had become a means to concentrate power and privilege by protecting an oligarchy of influential corporations within French society. Despite further attempts during the twentieth century with the creation of the École Nationale d’Administration, the assignment has not been fulfilled. The Grandes Écoles, criticized during much of their history, but especially in the last fifty years for operating as a filter to provide access to prestigious government jobs to the children of the haut-bourgeoisie without adding much value, have been placed on the defensive. Yet, however far from reality, the dream of developing a genuinely meritocratic public administration predicated on upward social mobility and individual initiative lives on.
Be it by exercising the right to resist tyranny, by opposing a “kakistocracy,” that is, the ruling of scoundrels, or by questioning the value of a bureaucratic oligarchy, the road to excellence in government is worth pursuing today as much as it was in 1789, despite its significant risks.[44] In the words of Emmanuel Sieyès, reinterpreting Plato’s allegory: “If the administrator is not given a clear goal, he loses his way.” [45] Undoubtedly, the cargo is too precious, and the destination too important to leave the ship of a government slanted and adrift.
Abraham Claudio Man is an independent scholar with a broad international background. Claudio graduated from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, with a degree in Public Accounting and was an adjunct professor at his alma mater. Later, he became a financial executive in the oil industry at a multinational corporation and a management consultant. Claudio also holds an M.A. in History from the University of North Texas, where he studied under the guidance of Dr. Michael V. Leggiere. His field of research is Military History and Public Administration during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Age. His thesis centered on the life and career of Count Pierre-Antoine Daru (1767-1829).
Claudio has shared his research at various international academic conferences, including essays concerning Pierre-Antoine Daru’s role as the father of the French army commissariat, a study about Napoleon’s 1812 campaign in Lithuania, and more recently, a survey about meritocratic government in eighteenth-century France. Claudio’s imagination was captivated by French military history early in life, after reading “Histoire d’un Conscrit de 1813” by Erckmann-Chatrian. Today, he studies history to learn about the foundations of the modern nation-state, interpret the lessons passed down by preceding generations, and apply them to the present.
[1] Juvenal, Satire VI, lines 347–348, this question, which means “who watches over the guards,” was posed in a dialogue framed around the topic of marriage but has come to represent the distrust over the government élite.
[2] Assemblée Nationale, Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen (Paris: Baudouin Imprimeur, 1789). Art 6: Les Citoyens étant égaux à ses yeux sont également admissibles à toutes dignités, places et emplois publics, selon leur capacité, et sans autre distinction que celle de leurs vertus et de leurs talents. See also http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/contenu/menu/droit-national-en-vigueur/constitution/declaration-des-droits-de-l-homme-et-du-citoyen-de-1789.
[3] Francois Furet and Denis Richet, French Revolution, translated by Stephen Hardman (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1970), 88-89. Aligned with Jacques Godechot’s opinion, the authors highlight that the Déclaration was a universal manifesto of freedom, focusing on man’s natural and imprescriptible rights but cautioning that it did not mention the citizens’ duties.
[4] J. Desenne, éd., Code Général Français (Paris: Ménard et Desenne, Fils, Libraires, 1818), 18-19.
[5] Jacques Godechot, Les institutions de la France sous la Révolution et l’Empire, (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1951), 39. Godechot highlights the Déclaration as a universal dogma (“Dès sa promulgation elle eut un profonde retentissement en France et dans le monde”) and contrasts it with the domestically oriented British Petition of Rights, and the English Magna Carta, or the American Declaration of Independence.
[6] R.R. Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution, A Political History of Europe and America, 1760-1800 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 62
[7] Georges Lefebvre, The French Revolution from its Origins to 1793, Volume 1, Translated by Elizabeth Moss Evanson (New York, Columbia University Press, 1962), 148-149. Lefebvre highlights the social significance of “expanding public employment for the poor but educated” and the call to the “most capable among the bourgeoisie to seize society’s political and economic leadership.”
[8] Furet and Richet, French Revolution, 44.
[9] Clive H. Church, Revolution and Red Tape: The French Ministerial Bureaucracy 1770-1850 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 10-13. Contradicting opinions like that of Alexis de Tocqueville, Church argues there is no case for seeing venal officers as bureaucrats.
[10] Some recent statistics offer a valuable perspective on the scale and proportion of the effort required to recruit and prepare public administrators, legislators, and magistrates. According to the OECD, there are approximately 6,000,000 public employees in all of France today, out of which 2,500,000 work for the central government, while all elected officials throughout the territory occupy 45,000 positions, a ratio of 133:1. Providing another comparison, in the central government of the United States there are approximately 4,000 political appointees and 537 elected officials, compared to total staffing of about 2.87 million career servants, a ratio of 633:1. Beyond the numbers, it is crucial to recognize that the opening of all government jobs to talent and virtue necessitates a significant investment in public education and infrastructure, a testament to the societal advancements demanded by the French Revolution.
[11] Adrian Wooldridge, The Aristocracy of Talent (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2021), 64-71.
[12] General Charles André De Gaulle, French President, in response to Clement Attlee, British Prime Minister, who said that De Gaulle was a good soldier but a lousy politician. A Prime Minister Remembers, The War and Post-War Memoirs of The Rt. Hon. Earl Attlee, (London, Heinemann, 1961), Chapter 4. See also Oxford Reference (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2024). It paraphrases the expression: “war is too serious a matter to be left to military men,” attributed to Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand and cited by Georges Clemenceau.
[13] Howard G. Brown, War, Revolution and the Bureaucratic State, Politics and Army Administration in France 1791-1799 (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1995), 65. Brown attributes the creation of the Committee of Public Safety (Comité de Salut Public) to the collapse of executive authority between April 1792 and April 1793, opening the door to regime change and the legislature’s direct involvement in the administration of the war effort.
[14] Charles-Jean-Baptiste Bonnin, Principes d’administration publique pour server a l’étude des lois administratives (Paris: Clament Frères Librairies, 1809), 9. Bonnin, a well-respected law scholar and liberal politician, offered the Napoleonic regime a project of code of public administration that, suggestively, was not implemented.
[15] Godechot, Les Institutions, 458-459. The author cites a speech by Boissy D’Anglas, a Girondin, one of the sponsors of the Constitution of An III, identifying him among the conservative members of the legislature wanting to limit access to power to the most highly educated and those who would be most interested in protecting and enforcing the law, in his view, the large private property owners.
[16] Jorge L. Garcia Venturini, “Aristocracia y Democracia.” La Prensa, Buenos Aires, Argentina (29 December 1974).
[17] Church, Revolution and Red Tape, 32-33.
[18] Max Weber, Economy and Society, A new translation, Edited and Translated by Keith Tribe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 2019), 350-354.
[19] Alexis de Tocqueville, The Ancien Régime and the Revolution (London: Penguin Classics, 2008), 198-202.
[20] Church, Revolution and Red Tape, 67-68.
[21] Louis Antoine Léon Saint-Just report to the legislature by the Comité de Salut Public, 1 October 1793: Vous devez diminuer partout le nombre des agents, afin que les chefs travaillent et pensent. Le ministère est un monde de papier… il ne se fait rien, et la dépense est pourtant énorme. Les bureaux ont remplacé le monarchisme, le démon d’écrire nous fait la guerre, et l’on ne gouverne point.
[22] Brown, War, Revolution, and the Bureaucratic State, 156-160.
[23] William Doyle, Origins of the French Revolution (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999), 193
[24] Godechot, Les Institutions de la France, 98-105. The author remarks that the Procureur has a direct communication link with the ministers in Paris and reports to the King. Georges Lefebvre takes a different view and sees the creation of the departmental General Councils as a reflection of the deputies’ will to decentralize power. If so, it was short-lived (see Georges Lefebvre, The French Revolution, Volume I, 154-155).
[25] Susan Rose-Ackerman, Peter L. Lindseth, Blake Emerson, ed., Comparative Administrative Law (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017), 23-26.Of particular interest is chapter 1 by Sordi, Bernardo. “Révolution, Rechtsstaat, and the Rule of Law: historical reflections on the emergence and development of administrative law.”
[26] In 1795, the Procureurs were replaced by Commissaires du pouvoir exécutif and under Napoleon Bonaparte by a new local authority, the Préfets.
[27] Paul H. Beik, The French Revolution (New York, Walker & Co., 1971), 159-168. In his book, aimed at providing readers with direct testimony of the revolutionary times and events, Beik includes the translation of the letter sent by Louis XVI with his bitter thoughts about the configuration of the Executive branch and the limitations imposed by the Legislature on his function as head of the executive, his rights as sovereign, and his role as chief of state. The dominance of the legislature over the Executive branch began to be reversed during the Directory and was completely turned around during the Consulate and the Empire.
[28] Marie-Christine Kessler, Les Grands Corps de l’État (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1986), 13.
[29] Godechot, Les Institutions de la France, 451-453.
[30] Kessler, Les Grands Corps de l’État, 46-47.
[31] Marie-Jean Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet, Œuvres, 12 Vols. Ed. A. Condorcet O’Connor and M.F. Arago (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1847-1849). The collection includes a newspaper article published in July 1790, “Sur l’admission des femmes aux droits de Cité.”
[32] Furet and Richet, French Revolution, 74.
[33] Bernard S. Silberman, Cages of Reason, the rise of the rational state in France, Japan, the United States, and Great Britain (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993), 98.
[34] For completeness, the Corps de Inspection des Finances must be added. This function had broad review authority but restricted enforcement and prosecutorial capabilities. Its statute reaffirmed the prevailing theory that the Executive had sufficient autonomy to judge itself. The Inspection des Finances was created in 1816, during the Restauration.
[35] Kessler, Les Grands Corps de l’État, 24-29
[36] Kessler, Le Grands Corps de l’État, 30.
[37] Pierre Bourdieu, The State Nobility, Elite Schools in the Field of Power (Sanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), 73. The author criticizes the educational model chosen by the French political élite to prepare candidates for public office, noting that in their majority, the high-performing students are part of a privileged class accustomed to rule and that their schooling is akin to “teaching fish how to swim.”
[38] Robert Nigel Gildea, Children of the Revolution: The French, 1799-1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 5-6.
[39] David D. Bien, translated by J. Rovet. “La Réaction Aristocratique Avant 1789: L’exemple de l’armée.” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 29, no. 2 (1974): 505–34. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27579282.
[40] Thomas E Kaiser and Dale K. Van Kley, editors, From Deficit to Deluge, The Origins of the French Revolution, (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011), 41-42.
[41] Isser Woloch, Napoleon and his collaborators, the making of a dictatorship (New York, W. W. Norton & Co, 2001), 120-157. Woloch devotes a whole chapter to the Second Consul, Cambacérès. Bernard Bergerot, Daru, Intendant Général de la Grande Armée (Paris: Librairie Jules Tallandier, 1991), 193. Bergerot authored his doctoral thesis about the Intendent Général de la Grande Armée and Minister of War Administration.
[42] Kessler, Les Grands Corps de l’État, 80. Dr. Marie-Christine Kessler has remarked that the corps of auditors of the Conseil d’État was a harbinger of the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA), created in 1945.
[43] Woloch, Napoleon and his collaborators, 173-175.
[44] Jorge Garcia Venturini, Politeia (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Cooperativas, 2002), 48.
[45] Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, Qu’est ce que le Tiers état (Paris, Éditions du Boucher, 2002), 1. Sieyès reflected: “si l’administrateur ne voit le but, il ne sait où il va,” echoing the Greek philosopher Plato, who used a metaphor to make the point that it was foolish to charter a vessel without hiring a captain who knew how to reach the destination, see Republic (Book 6, 488a–489d).
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