Note (Back) — Chapter XVIII

383. The Commune.—The most fundamental of the administrative divisions of France, and the only one whose origins antedate the Revolution, is the commune. The commune is at the same time a territorial division and a corporate personality. "On the one hand," to employ the language of a recent writer, "it is a tract of territory the precise limits of which were defined by the law of December 22, 1789, or by some subsequent law or decree; for by the law of 1789 all local units which had a separate identity during the old régime were authoritatively recognized as communes, and since that enactment there have been a number of suppressions, divisions, consolidations, and creations of communal units. On the other hand, the commune is an agglomeration of citizens united by life in a common locality and having a common interest in the communal property. A commune ranks as a legal person: it may sue and be sued, may contract, acquire, or convey property,—it may, in general, exercise all of the ordinary rights of a corporation."[516]