..

It would be painful to think that a lack of salary was one of the causes of the difficulty in establishing municipal administrations.
In 1790, 1791, and 1792, we found our fellow-citizens emulously striving after these gratuitous offices and even proud of the disinterestedness which the law prescribed." (Report of the Directory, end of 1795.) After this date public spirit is extinguished, stifled by the Reign of Terror .-- Ibid., 368, 369: "Deplorable indifference for public offices....

Out of seven town officials appointed in the commune of Laval, only one accepted, and that one the least capable.

It is the same in the other communes."-- Ibid., 380 (Report of the year VII): "General decline of public spirit."-- Ibid., 287 (Report by Lacuee, on the 1st military division, Aisne, Eure-et-Loire, Loiret, Oise, Seine, Seine-et-Marne, (year IX): "Public spirit is dying out and is even gone."] [Footnote 2105: Rocquain, Ibid., p.27 (Report of Francois de Nantes, on the 8th military division,Vaucluse, Bouches-du-Rhone, Var, Basses-Alpes, and Alpes-Maratimes, year IX): "Witnesses, in some communes, did not dare furnish testimony, and, in all, the justices of the peace were afraid of making enemies and of not being re-elected.

It was the same with the town officials charged with prosecutions and whom their quality as elected and temporary officials always rendered timid."-- Ibid., 48: "All the customs-directors complained of the partiality of the courts.