Corps législatif (Second French Empire)
입법원 (프랑스 제2제정)
The lower house of the Second French Empire, established by the constitution of 14 January 1852. Its members were elected every six years by universal male suffrage, but at first it could neither initiate laws, vote the budget in detail nor elect its own president. Reforms in the 1860s widened its powers, giving it the initiative of laws in 1869, and it was dispersed on 4 September 1870 when Paris crowds invaded its chamber.
In depth
A body named Corps législatif was first created by the Consulate's constitution of 1799 and abolished by Louis XVIII in 1814. After the coup of 2 December 1851, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte revived it as the lower house under the constitution of 1852, sharing legislative power with the Council of State, made up of functionaries, and a Senate appointed for life. All laws were proposed by the executive and prepared by the Council of State. Its 270 members could sit for a single three-month session each year, and until 1869 its president and vice-presidents were appointed by the emperor. Its only real power was to reject bills and budget estimates.
Elections were held in 1852, 1857, 1863 and 1869. Prefects put the whole administration, from justices of the peace to road menders, behind the official candidates, who won 85 per cent of the votes cast in 1857. In 1858 the law of general security passed the Corps législatif by 221 votes to 24. After 1860 its rights of address and amendment were widened and stenographic reports of its debates were published, and when the opposition won 3.3 million votes at the elections of 1869, a senatus-consultum of 8 September gave it the initiative of laws and an unrestricted right of interpellation. The senatus-consultum of 20 April 1870 made the ministers responsible to the Corps législatif as well.
When the government announced the war to the Corps législatif on 15 July 1870, the whole opposition, according to the First Address of The Civil War in France, refused to vote the preliminary subsidies, and even Thiers branded the war "detestable". On 4 September, after the news of Sedan, demonstrators invaded the chamber and dispersed it, and the deputies for Paris formed the Government of National Defence at the Hôtel de Ville. Marx wrote in 1871 that the revolution of 4 September was the only legal title of the National Assembly, without which it would have had to give way to the Corps législatif elected in 1869 by universal suffrage under French rule. Under the Third Republic its place was taken by the Chamber of Deputies.