ABSTRACT
Power is potentiality: for those subjected to it, it offers the potential for good and for ill and therefore each and everyone is directly concerned with the way in which power is used. It is not a necessary condition because governmental actions were very effectively–some would even say too effectively–contested under the French Third and Fourth Republics in which, nevertheless, the opposition party as the sole candidate to replace the government was unknown. The problem is that a power should exist which checks power, without replacing it, for in that case one runs the same risk. It must then be recognized that the power of prevention which the parlements arrogated to themselves was in the end much abused. Parliament indeed developed as an institution whereby a neces sitous monarchic government drew private power and influence into the achieving of the goals of public policy.
