'The concept of the archive shelters in itself, of course, this memory of the name arkhe . But it also shelters itself from this memory which it shelters [...] In a way, the term indeed refers, as one would correctly believe, to the arkhe in the physical, historical, or ontological sense, which is to say to the originary, the first, the principal, the primitive, in short to the commencement. But even more, and even earlier, "archive" refers to the arkhe in the nomological sense, to the arkhe of the commandment.' (Derrida AF: 2)

'[...] the Greek arkheion: initially a house, a domicile, an address, the resident of the [...] archons.' (Derrida AF: 2)

The archons are ' the documents guardians.' Through their archontic function, these citizens '...held and signified political power;' 'ensure the physical security of what is deposited and of the substrate;' 'are accorded the hermeneutic right and competence;' have the power to interpret the archives.' (Derrida AF: 2)

'In an archive, there should not be any absolute disassociation, any heterogeneity or secret which could separate (secernere), or partition, in an absolute manner. The archontic principle of the archive, is also a principle of consignation, that is, of gathering together.' (Derrida AF: 3)

'There is no political power without control of the archive, if not memory. Effective democratization can always be measured by this essential criterion: the participation in and access to the archive, its constitution, and its interpretation. A contrario, the breaches of democracy can be measured by what a recent and in so many ways remarkable work entitles Forbidden Archives (Archives interdites: Les peurs françaises face à l'histoire contemporaine). Under this title, which we cite as the metanymy of all that is important here, Sonia Combe does not only gather a considerable collection of material, to illuminate and interpret it; she asks numerous essential questions about the writing of history, about the "repression" of the archive (Combe 318), about the "'repressed archive" as "power of the state over the historian" (Combe 321) (Derrida AF: 4)