"
A _report_ is to the present system of administration what limbo or
hades is to Christianity. Jacquet knew very well the mania for
"reports"; he had not waited until this occasion to groan at that
bureaucratic absurdity. He knew that since the invasion into public
business of the _Report_ (an administrative revolution consummated in
1804) there was never known a single minister who would take upon
himself to have an opinion or to decide the slightest matter, unless
that opinion or matter had been winnowed, sifted, and plucked to bits
by the paper-spoilers, quill-drivers, and splendid intellects of his
particular bureau. Jacquet--he was one of those who are worthy of
Plutarch as biographer--saw that he had made a mistake in his
management of the affair, and had, in fact, rendered it impossible by
trying to proceed legally. The thing he should have done was to have
taken Madame Jules to one of Desmaret's estates in the country; and
there, under the good-natured authority of some village mayor to have
gratified the sorrowful longing of his friend. Law, constitutional and
administrative, begets nothing; it is a barren monster for peoples,
for kings, and for private interests. But the peoples decipher no
principles but those that are writ in blood, and the evils of legality
will always be pacific; it flattens a nation down, that is all.
Jacquet, a man of modern liberty, returned home reflecting on the
benefits of arbitrary power.
When he went with his report to Jules, he found it necessary to
deceive him, for the unhappy man was in a high fever, unable to leave
his bed.
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