Creation of the prefects

The Revolution had entrusted local administration to elected bodies, often powerless and sometimes hostile to the government. After ten years of fiscal disorder, poorly applied conscription and insurrection in the west, the Consulate wanted a chain of command with no elective link.

The law of 28 Pluviôse Year VIII, promulgated on 17 February 1800 and prepared by Chaptal and Roederer, placed at the head of each department a prefect appointed by the First Consul, seconded by sub-prefects for the arrondissements and by mayors also appointed. Councils survived, but in an advisory role.

The prefect combined what the Ancien Régime had divided among the intendant, the subdelegate and the town corporations: he raised taxes, drew the conscription, watched the press, appointed schoolmasters, opened roads and reported every fortnight. He could be dismissed at any moment and was often moved, to prevent him taking root.

Recruitment was deliberately mixed: former members of the Constituent Assembly, returned émigrés, soldiers, rallied men of the Revolution. The prefecture became one of the instruments of the fusion of elites the regime was seeking.

Of all the consular institutions, this is the one that lasted longest without changing shape. Monarchies, republics and empires all kept the prefect; not until the decentralisation laws of 1982 did departmental executive power pass out of his hands.

The price was known and was noted at the time: local political life disappeared for a century and a half, and the administration formed the habit of coming down from Paris rather than up from the communes.