Note (Back) — Chapter XVI

343. The Senate: Composition and Election To-day.—The system thus devised continues, in the main, in effect at the present day. The principal variations from it are those introduced in a constitutional law of December 9, 1884, whereby it was provided (1) that the co-optative method of election should be abolished, and that, while present life members should retain their seats as long as they should live, all vacancies thereafter arising from the decease of such members should be filled within the departments in the regular manner, and (2) that the electoral college of the department should be broadened to include not merely one delegate from each municipal council, but from one to twenty-four (thirty in the case of Paris), according to the number of members in the council.[474] By the same law members of families that have reigned in France were declared ineligible; and by act of July 20, 1895, no one may become a member of either branch of Parliament unless he has complied with the law regarding military service.