l60 EMPLOYMENT OF THE PLEBISCITE [458 



the same time.^^ " It was being reestablished inasmuch as 

 henceforth all Frenchmen, twenty years of age, and domi- 

 ciled for one year, except paid domestic servants, are citi- 

 zens and possess the right to vote." But it was in fact 

 annihilated by such ingenious dispositions as these: 



All citizens of each communal arrondissement reduce their own 

 number to one-tenth in designating through their vote " those among 

 them whom they consider the best suited to conduct public affairs." 

 This one-tenth forms the liste communale or the lisie d'arrondisse- 

 mcnt from which the corresponding public functionaries must be 

 chosen. The citizens included in these communal lists of the various 

 departments again reduce themselves to one-tenth, thus producing 

 the liste departementale from which must be chosen the officers for 

 the department. All the departmental lists once more are reduced 

 to one-tenth and thus form the liste nationale of those eligible for 

 public national functions, e.g., the functions of deputies, tribunes, etc. 



But Aulard continues : 



For ten thousand, assuming that number, to be forced to designate 

 at least one thousand, is really not designating any one . . . because 

 the demand for such a large number does not permit of any choice 

 at all; in order to arrive at one thousand one had to designate all 

 and everyone who was not illiterate. At best one could exclude 

 some individuals not fitted for position, but there was no way of 

 excluding from the list an entire faction, or an opinion. i^ 



However, this was more than one hundred years ago. 

 Still, England, until well into the XIX century, and Prussia 

 and Saxony, until the reforms of the year 1918, possessed 

 restricted franchises scarcely superior to the one described 

 by Aulard. 



The restrictions of the French franchise of 1799, and 

 those of the later English, Prussian and Saxon systems, 

 were based on the material distinctions of property or in- 

 come, conditioned by internal policies, chiefly with the de- 

 sire to protect prevailing social and economic principles 

 against undesirable evolutionary' or revolutionary changes. 

 Such considerations, however, can not be adduced in the 

 case of a vote on the transfer of territory entailing a change 

 of allegiance. If a plebiscite in such a case is to be held, 

 persons capable of earning their own living should be con- 



^' F. V. A. Aulard, Histoire politique de la Revolution francaise, 

 Paris, 1901, p. 706. 

 "Ibid., pp. 706-707. 



