The Conseil d'État, which sits in the Palais-Royal under the presidency of the Garde des Sceaux, is at once a council of the government by its participation in the drawing up of laws, a council of administration, and the highest of administrative juridical bodies. It deliberates in two sections, in _Assemblée Générale_ and in _Assemblée du Contentieux_. The Conseil Général de la Seine, which holds its sessions in its chamber at the Hôtel de Ville, is composed of eighty municipal councillors of Paris and twenty-one general councillors elected by the cantons of the banlieue. The Conseil Municipal, which also sits at the Hôtel de Ville, is elected from the twenty arrondissements of the city, one from each quarter, for four years, and corresponds to the Conseils of the Communes in the departments. The Préfet de la Seine and the Préfet de Police have the right of attendance at its sittings and of being heard whenever they wish. In the Palais du Tribunal de Commerce, the Conseil de Préfecture de la Seine holds its sittings and occupies itself with a great variety of municipal matters confided to its jurisdiction by law.
In the capital, the executive power, which in the other communes of France is confided to the Maires, is exercised by the two Préfets, of the Seine and of Police, who are thus invested with the triple character of representatives of the State, of the Administration of the Department of the Seine, and of superior officers of the State performing the duties of Maire of Paris. Those divisions of the municipal administration which depend directly upon the Préfecture of the Seine are located in various buildings,--in the Hôtel de Ville itself, in the _Annexe Est_, the old caserne Lobau, just across the Place Lobau, in the _Annexe Nord_, on the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville and the Avenue Victoria, and at numerous other localities throughout the city. The balls of the Hôtel de Ville--which are a portion of the municipal administration--have recently been replaced by more frequent receptions, at which there is always dancing and a concert.
The administration of the Préfecture de Police is divided into three Bureaux, the first of which is closely connected with the cabinet of the Préfet, and the two others constitute the first and the second divisions. The first Bureau is divided into four sections, and the second into two, each of these subdivisions having its special department. The Commissaires de Police are municipal officers appointed in Paris by a decree of the President of the Republic on the nomination of the Minister of the Interior, in the proportion of one for every ten thousand inhabitants. In cities and towns having a population of less than six thousand, these officers are appointed by the Préfet. They are charged with the duty of enforcing the laws and the regulations of the municipal police, the pursuit and arrest of criminals, and they have authority in all controversies and litigations brought before the Tribunals Civils, or those which never appear in court. The immediate chief of the police, or _gardiens de la paix_, of each arrondissement, is the Officier de Paix, who has his headquarters in the Mairie of that arrondissement, and who is the functionary to appeal to in all matters connected with the public highways. "(1) If you have cause to fear any scandal, if you have need of police protection, he will give orders to have a gardien posted at your door; (2) if you have any cause of complaint against individuals, cab-drivers, cartmen, street-vendors, who crowd the street, or who make a disturbance before your dwelling, he will draw up against them _procès-verbaux de contravention_ [which is a very efficient remedy]; (3) he is obliged to assure, by the gardiens de la paix, the safety of children who have to cross wide streets when leaving school; (4) at night, it is he who sends to the hospitals the persons who may be found sick or wounded in the streets; (5) it is to him that notice must be given of the disappearance of old persons, children, sick, or those demented; he immediately notifies the municipal police headquarters, which, in turn, sends word to all the posts throughout Paris."