[p. 117]
|117| monarchical power and the governmental power are very different from one another. To the monarchical power belong the principal branches of the highest power of the state, above all those which concern the relation to other states, the power to decide on war and peace, the disposition over the army, the appointment of the ministers – yet it has become etiquette that the monarch directly appoints only the president of the ministerial council and that he composes the rest of the cabinet -, the appointment of the army commanders and officers, of the ambassadors etc. Now since to Parliament belongs the sovereign decision on the budget (including even the sum for the sustenance of the king and his family), that is, on the total extent of the means of making war and peace, of having an army, ambassadors etc., and a ministry can thereby only govern, that is, exist, in so far as it conforms to the views and the will of Parliament, the share of the monarch in the governmental power is more illusory than real, and the substance of it is to be found in Parliament. It is well known that Sieyes, who had the great reputation of deep insight into the organisation of free constitutions, in his plan, which he was finally able to draw forth from his portfolio at the transition from the directorial constitution to the consular, so that France might now be set in the enjoyment of this result of experience and of thorough reflection, placed at the head of the state a chief to whom would fall the pomp of representation outwards and the appointment of the supreme council of state and of the responsible ministers as well as of the further subordinate officials, so that the supreme governmental power was to be entrusted to that council of state, while the Proclamateur-électeur was to have no share in it. One knows the soldierly judgement of Napoleon, who felt himself made master and ruler, on this project of such a chief, in whom he saw only the role of a cochonà l’engrais de quelques millions, which no man of any talent and some honour would be found
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