decision may appeal to the district tribunal, which shall pronounce in the last resort.

TITLE XI. OF THE JUDGES IN THE MATTERS OF POLICE.

I. The municipal bodies within the precincts of each municipality shall look to and supervise the execution of the laws and the police regulations and shall have jurisdiction over the litigation to which this execution may give rise.

5.

Contraventions of the police regulations shall be punished only by one of these two penalties, either by condemnation to a pecuniary penalty or imprisonment by way of correction for a time which in the most serious cases shall not exceed three days in the country and eight days in the cities.

6. Appeals from the judgments in police matters shall be carried to the tribunal of the district and these judgments shall be executed provisionally, notwithstanding the appeal and without prejudice to it.

TITLE XII. OF THE JUDGES IN MATTERS OF COMMERCE.

I. There shall be established a commercial tribunal in the cities where the department administration, deeming these establishments necessary, shall frame a request for them.

2. This tribunal shall have jurisdiction of all commercial suits, both by land and sea, without distinction.

7. The commercial judges shall be elected in the assembly of the merchants, bankers, traders, manufacturers, ship-owners and ship-captains of the city where the tribunal is established.

10. Circular Letter of Louis XVI to Foreign Courts.

April 23, 1791. Archives Parlementaires, XXV, 312-313.

On April 18, 1791, Louis XVI was prevented from going to St. Cloud by the Paris crowds, who feared that he was trying to escape from the capital. This document, communicated to the Constituent Assembly as well as to the foreign courts, was obviously intended to quiet these fears and to conceal the King's preparations for flight. In connection with No. 12 A It did much to establish a firm belief in the King's insincerity. The views

expressed, though certainly not the real views of the King, are of interest, as substantially those of Frenchmen loyal to the King and the Revolution alike.

REFERENCE. Aulard, Revolution Francaise, 116-117.

The King charges me to inform you that it is his most express wish that you should make known his sentiments upon the French Revolution and Constitution at the court where you reside. The ambassadors and ministers of France at all the courts of Europe are receiving the same directions, in order that there may not remain any doubt about the intentions of His Majesty, or about the free acceptance which he has given to the new form of government, or about his irrevocable oath to maintain it.

His Majesty convoked the States-General of the kingdom and determined in his Council that the Commons should have in it a number of deputies equal to that of the other two orders which then existed. This act of provisional legislation, which the obstacles of the moment did not permit to be made more favorable, announced sufficiently the desire of His Majesty to re-establish the nation in all of its rights.

The States-General met and took the title of National Assembly; soon a Constitution, qualified to secure the welfare of France and of the monarch, replaced the former order of things, in which the apparent power of the kingship only concealed the actual power of certain aristocratic bodies.

The National Assembly adopted the form of representative government in conjunction with hereditary kingship. The leg. islative body was declared permanent; the election of clergymen, administrators, and judges was made over to the people, the executive power was conferred upon the King, the formation of the law upon the Legislative Body, and the sanction upon the monarch. The public force, both internal and external, was organized upon the same principles and in accordance with the fundamental basis of the distinction of the powers: such is the new Constitution of the kingdom.

What is called the Revolution is only the abolition of a multitude of abuses accumulated in the course of centuries through the error of the people or the authority of the ministers, which has never been the authority of the King. These abuses were not less disastrous to the monarch than to the nation; under wise

reigns authority had not ceased to attack these abuses, but was not able to destroy them. They no longer exist; the sovereign nation has no longer any but citizens equal in rights, no despot but the law, no organs except the public functionaries, and the King is the first of these functionaries: such is the French Revolution.

It was bound to have as enemies all those who in the first moment of error, on account of personal advantage, mourned for the abuses of the former government. From this comes the apparent division which has manifested itself within the kingdom, but which is enfeebled each day; from this, also, perhaps, come some severe and exceptional laws which time will correct; but the King, whose real power is inseparable from that of the nation, who has no other ambition than the welfare of the nation nor any real authority other than that which out the is delegated to him; the King was bound to agree without hesitation to a happy Constitution which would regenerate at one and the same time his authority, the nation, and the monarchy. He has retained all his authority, except the redoubtable power to make the laws; he remains in charge of the negotiations with foreign powers, the task of defending the kingdom and of repulsing its enemies; but the French nation henceforth will not have any enemies abroad except its aggressors. It no longer has internal enemies except those who, still nourishing foolish hopes, believe that the will of 24,000,000 men entered again upon their natural rights, after having organized the ot kingdom in such a manner that only the memory of the old forms and former abuses remains, is not an immovable and ir. revocable Constitution.

The most dangerous of these enemies are those who seek to spread doubts as to the intentions of the monarch: these men are indeed culpable or blind; they believe themselves the friends of the King; they are the only enemies of the monarchy; they would have deprived the monarch of the love and confidence of a great nation, if his principles and probity had been less known. Ah! What has the King not done to show that he counts both the French Revolution and the Constitution among his titles to glory. After having accepted and sanctioned all the laws he has not neglected any means to cause them to be executed. Even in the month of February last in

the midst of the National Assembly, he promised to maintain them: he took an oath thereto in the presence of the general federation of the kingdom. Honored with the title of Restorer of French Liberty, he will transmit more than a crown to his son: he will transmit to him a constitutional monarchy.

The enemies of the Constitution do not cease to repeat that the King is not happy, as if there could be for the King any other happiness than that of the people! They say that his authority is dishonored; as if authority founded upon force was not less powerful and more uncertain than the authority of the law! In fine, that the King is not free: an atrocious calumny, if it is supposed that his will could be forced; an absurd one, if they take as lack of liberty the consent that His Majesty has several times expressed to remain in the midst of the citizens of Paris, a consent which he was bound to concede to their patriotism, even to their fears, and especially to their love.

These calumnies, however, have penetrated even into foreign courts; they have been repeated there by Frenchmen who have voluntarily exiled themselves from their fatherland, instead of sharing its glory, and who, if they are not its enemies, have at least abandoned their posts as citizens. The King charges you, sir, to defeat their intrigues and their plans. These same calumnies, in spreading false ideas about the French Revolution, have caused the intentions of French travelers to be suspected among several neighboring nations; and the King especially recommends that you protect and defend them. Give, sir, the idea of the French Constitution which the King himself has formed; do not allow there to be any doubt about the intention of His Majesty to maintain it with all his power. In assuring the liberty and equality of the citizens, that Constitution founds the national prosperity upon the most enduring basis; it consolidates the royal authority through the laws; t forestalls by a glorious revolution the revolution which the abuses of the former government would have soon caused to break forth, thus causing perhaps the dissolution of the Empire. Finally, it will be the happiness of the King. The task of justifying it, of defending it, and of taking it for the rule of your conduct, must be your first duty.

I have already expressed several times the sentiments of

His Majesty in this matter; but after what has been reported to him of the opinion which is sought to be established in foreign countries upon what has taken place in France, he has ordered me to charge you to communicate the contents of this letter to the court at which you are; and in order to give it the utmost publicity, His Majesty has just ordered the printing of it.

Paris, April 23, 1791.

Signed,

MONTMORIN.

11. Decree for Abolishing the Industrial Corporations.

June 14, 1791. Duvergier, Lois, III, 22.

By a decree of March 2, 1791, the Constituent Assembly abolished all of the vocation monopolies of the Old Régime and laid down the principle that "every person shall be free to engage in such business or to practice such profession, art or craft as he shall find profitable." This document is the complement of that decree. In it may be seen the intense feeling against the old vocation monopolies and the determination to secure an absolutely free field for individual activity.

1. The suppression of all sorts of corporations of the citizens of the same calling and profession being one of the fundamental bases of the French Constitution, the re-establishment of them under any pretext or any form whatsoever is forbidden.

2. Citizens of a like calling or profession, employers, shopkeepers, workers and journeymen of a certain trade, shall not, when they shall meet together, name a president, or secretaries, or syndics, nor keep registers, nor pass resolutions or make decisions, nor form regulations for their so-called common interests.

3. All the administrative or municipal bodies are forbidden to receive any address or petition under the denomination of a calling or profession or to make any response to such; and they are enjoined to declare void the deliberations which may have been taken in that manner and to see to it carefully that no effect or execution be given to them.

4. If, contrary to the principles of liberty and the constitution, citizens engaged in the same professions, arts and crafts.