ABSTRACT
By deploying a comparative constitutional historical approach, this chapter attempts to highlight, although only cursorily, the historical research aiming to identify some common national traditions of executive power responsibility in Europe in the nineteenth century. The long nineteenth century, ending with the outbreak of the First World War, allows us to see how various European constitutional regimes, most of them monarchical, faced the crucial issues of parliamentarism and constitutionalism. What may appear to be a conceptual difficulty in separating or confusing impeachment and political accountability is in reality an important aspect of how things then were. Responsibility serves first of all to defend and guarantee the Constitution and then eventually to blame the minister. The lack of a specific discipline or of a real effectiveness turned out to be the defining feature of executive power accountability in Europe during the nineteenth century.
