Page:The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789-1907, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged.pdf/127

Rh of the regulative laws several articles which had been presented to me as constitutional. You have established legal forms for the revision of those which you have placed in the constitution. Finally, the opinion of the people is to me no longer doubtful; I have seen it manifested both in their adhesion to your work and their attachment to the maintenance of the monarchical government.

I accept then the constitution. I take the engagement to maintain it within, to defend it against attacks from without, and to cause it to be executed by all the means which it places in my power. I declare that, instructed by the adhesion which the great majority of the people give to the constitution, I renounce the co-operation which I had claimed in that work; and that, being responsible only to the nation, no other, when I renounce it, has the right to complain thereof. I should be lacking in sincerity, however, if I said that I perceived in the means of execution and administration, all the energy which may be necessary in order to give motion to and to preserve unity in all the parts of so vast an empire; but since opinions at present are divided upon these matters, I consent that experience alone remain judge therein. When I shall have loyally caused to operate all the means which have been left to me, no reproach can be aimed at me, and the nation, whose interest alone ought to serve as rule, will explain itself by the means which the constitution has reserved to it.

Signed.

 17. The Rejected Decrees.

The Legislative Assembly began its sittings October 1, 1791. Among the many difficult questions confronting it were those of the émigrés and the non-juring clergy. These decrees represent the assembly's solution of these problems. Both were rejected by the king. This rejection was a leading factor in producing both the declaration of war against Austria and the overthrow of the monarchy.

Gardiner, French Revolution, 100–102; Stephens, French Revolution, II, 31–39; Cambridge Modern History, VIII, 218–219; Lavisse and Rambaud, Histoire générale, VIII, 125–126; Jaurès, Histoire socialiste, II, 842–845, 848–860.

A. Decree upon the Émigrés. November 9, 1791. Duvergier, Lois, IV, 14–15.

