History: the creation of French departments during the Revolution

Charged with this great work of reform, a committee was created in July 1789, including Talleyrand, Sieyès and Le Chapelier.

The bases of the new administrative division

This committee first takes up the idea of ​​the geometric division of US statesfrom a map of France presenting 81 square subdivisions of approximately 70 kilometers on each side (18 leagues out of 18), each subdivision being composed of nine districts of nine cantons each.

The citizens furthest from the capital must be able to make the round trip on horseback during the day, according to Condorcet’s wish. Mirabeau is rather in favor of 120 departments without intermediate subdivisions, “ to bring the administration closer to people and things “. The project of the Sieyès committee is based on the ” Map of France by grid », proposed by the geographer Robert de Hesseln in 1786; it undoubtedly allows the deputies to reflect on the proportional political representation of the different regions, but the map does not take account of natural data (relief, communication routes, land occupation density, etc.).

The map of the geographer Louis Hennequin, intended to show the influence of the new departments, outlines the contours of the future districts. The title of this document is handwritten: we did not have time to engrave the final state of a project which has already given rise to numerous complaints. Finally, the procedure for delimiting the provinces is quite pragmatic, thanks to the collaboration between the division committee and the deputies of each province, with rectifications often linked to electoral concerns. In December 1789, the draft decree on the division of the kingdom of france ” in 75 to 85 departments shows that the boundaries are already fixed but that the departments are not yet named: they bear the name of the former province or that of their main town.

The number of 83 departments is retained by the decree of February 26, 1790: the text fixes the limits and the chief towns of the new departments whose name must break with the old provinces of the kingdom. One thus chooses names of rivers, rivers, mountains… The territorial division causes conflicts but it is carried out in a few months and allows the installation of the revolutionary administration. True working documents, these maps suggest the reflection of the deputies in charge of the “departments” project, wishing for a fair administration and equality between all the components of the nation.

The reasons for the new territorial organization

Better management? Territorial equality of citizens? The reform of the departments is above all political because it aims to legitimize the proportional representation of deputies in the Assembly: each portion of the territory must be fairly represented in The national assembly based in Paris. The department as a single national division becomes the “basic module” of political life and administration. From the territorial subdivisions (department, district, canton, commune), the regular exercise of the election is set up: the French will gradually experience the functioning of a local democracy, where the elected notables alone hold the power without the control of State agents (role of intendants under the old regime).

From 1790 to 1799, it is considered that twenty general consultations were organized at the local or national level. apart from the period fall 1793 – summer 1795 (Terror, civil wars in Vendée and in the South), the French voted at least three times a year. From the Management Board (October 1795 – November 1799), the exercise of power is inseparable from national representation and therefore from the election.

A France of 130 departments

On the eve of Consulate (December 1799 – May 1804), the French territory has 113 departments: indeed from 1792, France at war extends considerably and the majority of the annexed regions are organized into departments. In addition to several new departments in mainland France (Alpes-Maritimes, Vaucluse, Rhône, Loire, etc.) and in West Indies (Guadeloupe, Santo Domingo), this also concerns present-day Belgium, the Netherlands, part of Germany (left bank of the Rhine and coasts of the North Sea) and Switzerland, northern and central Italy.

The successive conquests of Napoleon I^er further extend French territory well beyond its domain of 1789. At its peak, the Empire had 130 departments and even 134 if we include the short-lived French departments of Spain. The cities of RomeHamburg, amsterdamTurin, Brussels and Aix-la-Chapelle become prefectures, in the same way as Bordeaux, reindeer or Marseilles. When the Empire finally fell in 1815, France was reduced to 86 departments; the three additional departments compared to those of 1790 are: the Vaucluse, the Tarn-et-Garonne built on portions of neighboring departments and the Loire from the Rhône-et-Loire department which becomes the Rhône.

The department, instrument of power of the prefect

Under the Consulate, the prefectures, new administrative entities, are established within the departmental framework. The function of prefect was created by the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte on February 17, 1800: the prefect (assisted by sub-prefects) became the central and sole authority, representing the State on the territory of the department. The prefectural function replaces approximately that occupied under the Old Regime, by the intendants (administration within the framework of the generalities). In 1788 and 1789, the notebooks of grievances claim the disappearance of stewardswhich was decreed by the National Assembly in December 1789. The prefects found a share of absolute power strongly criticized in the royal intendants.

L’autonomy relative local communities, organized on the basis of the election, is not to the liking of the First Consul who decrees that the prefect will be solely responsible for administration in the department. The prefect becomes the obligatory intermediary between the departmental assembly and the State, he is the sole executive body of the department. He controls the General Council whose members are chosen by Bonaparte. The prefect even appoints the mayors and deputies of municipalities with less than 5,000 inhabitants.