《旧制度与大革命·卷二·第三章·所谓行政监护亦是旧制度所创》第3节
In 1764 the Government proposed to make a general law on the administration of the towns of France, and for this purpose it caused reports to be sent in by the Intendants of the Crown on the existing municipal government of the country. I have discovered a portion of the results of this inquiry, and I have fully satisfied myself by the perusal of it that the municipal affairs of all these towns were conducted in much the same manner. The distinctions are merely superficial and apparent--the groundwork is everywhere the same. In most instances the government of the towns was vested in two assemblies. All the great towns were thus governed, and some of the small ones. The first of these assemblies was composed of municipal officers, more or less numerous according to the place. These formed the executive body of the community, the corporation or corps de la ville, as it was then termed. The members of this body exercised a temporary power, and were elected when the King had restored the elective power, or when the town had been able to buy up its offices. They held their offices permanently upon a certain payment to the Crown, when the Crown had appropriated the patronage and succeeded in disposing of it by sale, which was not always the case; for this sort of commodity declined in value precisely in proportion to the increasing subordination of the municipal authority to the central power. These municipal officers never received any stipend, but they were remunerated by exemptions from taxation and by privileges. No regular gradation of authority seems to have been established among them--their administration was collective. The mayor was the president of the corporation, not the governor of the city. The second assembly, which was termed the general assembly, or as we should say in England the livery, elected the corporation, wherever it was still subject to election, and always continued to take a part in the principal concerns of the town. In the fifteenth century this general assembly frequently consisted of the whole population. ‘This custom,’ said one of the authors of these Reports, ‘was consistent with the popular spirit of our forefathers.’ At that time the whole people elected their own municipal officers; this body was sometimes consulted by the corporation, and to this body the corporation was responsible. At the end of the seventeenth century the same state of things might sometimes be met with.
注释摘要
托克维尔在这一段文字中展开了一个具有方法论意味的发现。1764年王室试图为全法市镇制定统一行政法，下令各省总督呈报当地市政实况。作者翻阅了这批调查档案的一部分，得出了一个看似悖谬的结论：表面上看几乎没有两个城镇完全一样，各地的名目沿革、官职来源、议事程序都带着各自的历史残片；但恰恰在这种纷繁的表象之下，各地的权力构成、精神实质和受制于中央的方式都出奇一致。…