As the preliminary steps are taken by him, and he has constant direction of the local council for two weeks, and finally the right of confirmation, he controls it, and then for eleven months and a half, having sole charge of the daily and consecutive execution of its acts, he reigns in the local community.
Undoubtedly, having received and expended money for the community, he is accountable and will present his yearly accounts at the following session; the law says[4136] that in the commune, "the municipal council shall listen to and may discuss the account of municipal receipts and expenses." But read the text through to the end, and note the part which the law, in this case, assigns to the municipal council.

It plays the part of the chorus in the antique tragedy: it attends, listens, approves, or disapproves, in the background and subordinate, approved or rebuked, the principal actors remain in charge and do as they please; they grant or dispute over its head, independently, just as it suits them.

In effect, it is not to the municipal council that the mayor renders his accounts, but "to the sub-prefect, who finally passes them," and gives him his discharge.

Whatever the council may say, the approval is valid; for greater security, the prefect, if any councilor proves refractory, "may suspend from his functions" a stubborn fellow like him, and restore in the council the unanimity which has been partially disturbed .-- In the department, the council-general must likewise "listen" to the accounts for the year; the law, owing to a significant omission, does not say that is may discuss them.

Nevertheless, a circular of the year IX requests it to "make every observation on the use of the additional centimes" which the importance of the subject demands, to verify whether each sum debited to expenses has been used for the purpose assigned to it, and even "to reject expenses, stating the reasons for this decision, which have not been sufficiently justified." And better still, the minister, who is a liberal, addresses a systematic series of questions to the general councils, on all important matters,[4137] "agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, asylums and public charities, public roads and other works, public instruction, administration properly so called, state of the number of population, public spirit and opinions," collecting and printing their observations and desires.