Page:The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789-1907, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged.pdf/124

94 sons, their estates, their business, their religion, are likewise protected by the law.

Title VII. Of the Revision of the Constitutional Decrees

1. The National Constituent Assembly declares that the nation has the imprescriptible right to change its constitution: nevertheless, considering that it is more conformable to the national interests to make use of the right only to reform, by the means provided in the constitution itself, the articles of which experience shall have made the inconveniences felt, decrees that it shall proceed by an assembly of revision in the following form.

2. When three consecutive legislatures shall have expressed a uniform wish for the amendment of some constitutional article, the revision demanded shall take place.

3. The next legislature and the one following shall not propose the alteration of any constitutional article.

4. Of the three legislatures which may one after another propose any changes, the first two shall occupy themselves with that matter only in the last two months of their last session and the third only at the end of its first session or at the beginning of the second.

Their deliberations upon this matter shall be subject to the the same forms as the legislative acts; but the decrees by which they shall have expressed their wish shall not be subject to the sanction of the king.

5. The fourth legislature, augmented by two hundred and forty-nine members elected in each department by doubling the usual number which it furnishes for its population, shall form the assembly of revision.

These two hundred and forty-nine members shall be elected after the selection of the representatives of the legislative body shall have been concluded and there shall be a separate record made of it.

The assembly of revision shall be composed of only one chamber.

6. The members of the third legislature which shall have requested the alteration cannot be elected to the assembly of revision.

7. The members of the assembly of revision, after having