Conclusions the Prefects and the Jacobin State?

Paul Deschanel is reported to have said about his country that ‘We have the Republic on top and the Empire underneath’. In the light of this study, it is tempting to conclude that, in the régime of Charles de Gaulle, the French had the Empire on top but the Republic undearneath. Certainly, the Napoleonic ideal of unified, rationalised administration and the Marxist view of the State as a unified instrument of oppression (in support of monopolies) are both, to some extent, called into question by this examination of the work of the Prefects. What emerges from this study is not so much the unity of the State machine, but rather its incoherent, irrational nature.