8.

Decree for Abolishing the Nobility.

June 19, 1790.

Duvergier, Lois, I, 217-218.

The Revolution was a social revolution even more than a political one. On its social side it was marked by a passionate desire for equality, i.e., the removal of inequalities created or sanctioned by the law. This decree is typical of many passed by the Constituent Assembly for the purpose of removing legal sanction for social inequalities.

REFERENCE. Von Sybel, French Revolution, I, 238-241.

1. Hereditary nobility is forever abolished; in consequence the titles of prince, duke, count, marquis, viscount, vidame, baron, knight, messire, ecuyer noble, and all other similar titles, shall neither be taken by anyone whomsoever nor given to anybody.

2. A citizen may take only the true name of his family; no one may wear liveries nor cause them to be worn, nor have armorial bearings; incense shall not be burned in the temples, except in order to honor the Divinity, and shall not be offered for any one whomsoever.

3. The titles of monseigneur and messeigneurs shall not be given to any body [of men] nor to any person, likewise the titles of excellency, highness, eminence, grace, etc.; nevertheless, no citizen, under pretext of the present decree, shall be permitted to make an attack on the monuments placed in the temples, the charters, titles and other tokens of interest to families or properties, nor the decorations of any public or private place; nevertheless, the execution of the provisions relative to the liveries and the arms placed upon carriages shall not be carried out nor demanded by any one whomsoever before the 14th of July for the citizens living in Paris and before three months for those who inhabit the country.

4. No foreigners are included in the provision of the present decree; they may preserve in France their liveries and their armorial bearings.

9. Decree for Reorganizing the Judicial System.

August 16, 1790. Duvergier, Lois, I, 310-333.

One of the worst features of the Old Régime was its system for administering justice. This document, better than any other

one, exhibits the work of the Constituent Assembly in the field of judicial reform. Other important decrees are those of October 8 and 9, 1789, and of September 16 and 25, 1791, unfortunately too long to be included here.

REFERENCES. Stephens, French Revolution, I, 284-288; Lavisse and Rambaud, Histoire Generale, VIII, 84-85, 494-497.

TITLE I. OF THE ARBITERS.

1. Arbitration being the most reasonable means for the termination of disputes between citizens, the legislatures shall not make any provision which shall tend to diminish either the popularity or the efficiency of the compromis.

TITLE II. OF THE JUDGES IN GENERAL.

1. Justice shall be rendered in the name of the King. 2. The sale of judicial offices is abolished forever; the judges shall render justice gratuitously and shall be salaried by the State.

3.

The judges shall be elected by the justiciable.

4. They shall be elected for six years; at the expiration of this term a new election shall take place, in which the same judges may be re-elected.

12. They shall not make regulations, but they shall have recourse to the legislative body, whenever they think necessary, either to interpret a law or to make a new one.

13. The judicial functions are distinct and shall always remain separated from the administrative functions. The judges, under penalty of forfeiture, shall not disturb in any manner whatsoever the operations of the administrative bodies, nor cite before them the administrators on account of their functions.

14. In every civil or criminal matter, the pleadings, testimony, and decisions shall be public, and every citizen shall have the right to himself defend his own case, either verbally or in writing.

15. Trial by jury shall occur in criminal matters; the examination shall be made publicly and shall have the publicity which shall be determined.

16. All privilege in matters of jurisdiction is abolished; all

citizens, without distinction, shall plead in the same form and before the same judges in the same cases.

17. The constitutional order of the jurisdictions shall not be disturbed, nor the justiciable removed from their natural judges by any commission, nor by other attributions or evocations than those which are determined by the law.

18. All citizens being equal before the law, and every preference for rank and the turn to be tried being an injustice, all suits, according to their nature, shall be tried when they have been examined in the order in which their trial shall have been applied for by the parties.

19. The civil laws shall be reviewed and reformed by the legislatures; and there shall be made a general code of laws that are simple, clear, and in harmony with the constitution.

20. The Code of civil procedure shall be reformed forthwith in such a manner that it may be rendered more simple, more expeditious, and less expensive.

21. The Penal Code shall be reformed forthwith in such a manner that the penalties may be proportionate to the offences; taking good care that they be moderate and not losing sight of that maxim of the declaration of the rights of man that the law can establish only penalties which are strictly and evidently necessary.

TITLE III. OF THE JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.

I. There shall be in each canton a justice of the peace and upright assessors of the justice of the peace.

3. The justices of the peace may be chosen only from among the citizens eligible to the department and district administrations, fully thirty years of age, without any other condition of eligibility.

4. The justices of the peace shall be elected, with individual ballot and majority of the votes, by the active citizens met in primary assemblies.

6. The same electors shall select from among the active citizens of each municipality, by scrutin de liste and plurality, four notables to perform the duties of assessors of the justice of the peace. This justice shall call upon those who shall be

selected in the municipality of the place where there is need for their assistance.

8. The justices of the peace and the upright men shall be selected for two years and may be continued by re-election.

9. The justice of the peace, assisted by two assessors, shall have jurisdiction with them over all cases dealing solely with persons and personal property, without appeal up to the value of fifty livres and subject to appeal up to the value of a hundred livres. The legislatures shall not raise the

amount of this competency.

10. He has jurisdiction, likewise, without appeal up to the value of fifty livres and subject to appeal at whatever value the complainant can prove.

tions.]

[Here follow six classes of additional civil ac

12. The appeal from the judgments of the justice of the peace, when they are subject to appeal, shall be carried before the judges of the district and tried by them in the last resort in audience and summarily upon the simple writ of appeal.

TITLE IV. OF THE JUDGES OF FIRST INSTANCE.

I. There shall be established in each district a tribunal composed of five judges, with whom there shall be an officer charged with the functions of the public ministry. The substitutes for them shall be four in number, of whom two at least shall be taken from within the city of the establishment or required to reside in it.

4. The district judges shall have jurisdiction in the first instance over all personal, real estate, and mixed suits of every kind, except only those which have been declared above to be within the jurisdiction of the justices of the peace, commercial suits in the districts where there are no commercial tribunals established, and the litigious affairs of the municipal police

5. The district judges have jurisdiction in first and last resort over all suits involving persons and personal property, up to the value of a thousand livres of principal, and over real

estate suits of which the chief item shall be of fifty livres of Sixed revenue, either in income or in lease price.

TITLE V. OF THE JUDGES OF APPEAL.

I. The district judges shall be judges of appeal with respect to each other, according to the relations which shall be established in the following articles.

TITLE X. OF THE PEACE BUREAUX AND THE FAMILY TRIBUNAL. I. In all matters which shall exceed the competency of the justice of the peace, this justice and his assessors shall form a bureau of peace and conciliation.

2. No principal action in civil matters shall be received before the district judges between parties who shall all be domiciled in the jurisdiction of the same justice of the peace, whether in the city or in the country, unless the plaintiff gives at the head of his writ a copy of the certificate of the peace bureau attesting that his opponent has been summoned to no purpose to this bureau or that it has employed its mediation without result.

12. If any dispute arises between husband and wife, father and son, grand-father and grand-son, brothers and sisters, nephews and uncles, or between kinsmen of the above degrees, as also between pupils and their tutors in matters relative to their tutelage, the parties shall be required to appoint kinsmen or, in their default, friends or neighbors, as arbiters before whom they shall explain their difference and who, after having heard them and having obtained the necessary knowledge, shall render a decision which includes a statement of the reasons for it.

13. Each of the parties shall select two arbiters; and if one of them refuses, the other may apply to the judge, who, after having authenticated the refusal, shall appoint official arbiters for the refusing party. When the four arbiters find themselves divided in opinion they shall choose an umpire to remove the division.

14. The party which believes itself injured by the arbitral