Representative voting meant handing one's own power to someone else and letting him speak on one's behalf in Parliament and the legislature.
The divine right of kings meant that the right to rule came from God. Yet before the French Revolution, a king's edicts and laws had to be registered with the High Court before they could take effect and carry legal force. The nobles of the robe often used this right of registration to oppose the king.
After the French Revolution came the "government decree," a feature of the "French game." Some believed that proving the existence of a "government decree" was a false proposition in jurisprudence, but Napoleon had already ordered the construction of flushing lock chambers. Did his orders not count?
If everything he said could be treated as an order, then did his jokes have to be taken seriously too? And who was to supervise him?
A "government decree" provided a hiding place for despotic impulses. It was subject to political oversight but not judicial oversight. Parliament actually had the power to issue government decrees as well, but Napoleon kept that power in his own hands—for instance, to close Parliament.
Close it, not dissolve it. He had done exactly that in September 1801. During a rehearsal for the groundbreaking ceremony of the Saint-Martin Canal, he had nearly been assassinated by a group of killers disguised as cavalrymen. The entire city was put under curfew, and Parliament was closed for several days.
The "First Consul" issued an order and appointed a legislator to carry out a mission, yet this belonged neither to executive power nor legislative power. This was the strange nature of power Severus had once explained to her: if someone obeyed and carried out what he said, then power existed.
Napoleon said he wanted palaces