ABSTRACT
Similar and parallel evolution may be observed in relation to governmental activity. The imperialist system regarded governmental action as unique in that it was a manifestation of sovereign authority. Governmental action is undoubtedly different from statute in that the one is the act of an individual official, the other of a parliamentary order. This distinction was not always perceived. It was customary to see an administrative act in every order of the executive power or its agents, whether an ordinance, an individual decision, or even the performance of a simple menial task. Those were "administrative acts of some sort or kind" of which the Act of Fructidor 16th of the year III speaks. There was no question, of course, as to action by the courts; no analysis was made of the character proper to judicial functions.
