For, at least during the first years, one great object of the new government is the re-establishment of order in the local as well as in the general administration.

It is well-disposed and desires to mend matters; it undertakes the suppression of robbery, theft, embezzlement, waste, premeditated or unintentional arrogation of authority, extravagance, negligence and failure.
"Since 1790,"[4129] says the First Consul to the minister of the interior, "the 36,000 communes represent, in France, 36,000 orphans.
..

girls abandoned or plundered during ten years by their municipal guardians, appointed by the Convention and the Directory.

In changing the mayors, assistants, and councilors of the commune, scarcely more has been done than to change the mode of stealing; they have stolen the communal highway, the by-roads, the trees, and have robbed the Church;[4130] they have stolen the furniture belonging to the commune and are still stealing under the spineless municipal system of year VIII." All these abuses are investigated and punished;[4131] he thieves are obliged to restore and will steal no more.

The county budget, like of the State, must now be prepared every year,[4132] with the same method, precision, and clearness, receipts on one side and expenses on the other, each section divided into chapters and each chapter into articles, the state of the liabilities, each debt, the state of the assets and a tabular enumeration of distinct resources, available capital and unpaid claims, fixed income and variable income, certain revenue and possible revenue.