The recasting of French administrat

The recasting of French administration by Napoำlon is therefore my second example of the perfecting of civil machinery by the single will of an absolute ruler before the dawn of a constitutional era . No corporate , popular will could ever have effected arrangements such as those which Napoleon commanded. Arrangements so simple at the expense of local prejudice, so logical in their influence to popular choice, might be decreed by a Constitutional Assembly, but could be established only by the unlimited authority of a despot. The system of the year VIII was ruthlessly thorough and heartlessly perfect . It was, besides, in large part, a return to the despotism that had been overthrown.