Page:The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789-1907, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged.pdf/254

224 Council of Ancients.

82. The Council of Ancients is composed of two hundred and fifty members.

83. No one can be elected a member of the Council of Ancients,

Unless he is fully forty years of age;

Unless, moreover, he is married or a widower;

And unless he has been domiciled upon the soil of the Republic for the fifteen years which shall have immediately preceded the election.

84. The condition of domicile required by the preceding article and that prescribed by article 74 do not affect the citizens who are away from the soil of the Republic upon a mission of the government.

85. The Council of Ancients cannot deliberate unless the sitting is composed of at least one hundred and twenty-six members.

86. It belongs exclusively to the Council of Ancients to approve or reject the resolutions of the Council of the Five Hundred.

87. As soon as a resolution of the Council of the Five Hundred has reached the Council of Ancients the president directs the reading of the preamble.

88. The Council of Ancients refuses to approve the resolutions of the Council of the Five Hundred which have not been taken in the forms prescribed by the constitution.

89. If the proposition has been declared urgent by the Council of the Five Hundred, the Council of Ancients decides to approve or reject the act of urgency.

90. If the Council of Ancients rejects the act of urgency it does not pass upon the matter of the resolution.

91. If the resolution is not preceded by an act of urgency there shall be three readings of it: the interval between two of these readings cannot be less than five days.

The debate is open after each reading.

Every resolution is printed and distributed at least two days before the second reading.

92. The resolutions of the Council of the Five Hundred adopted by the Council of Ancients are called Laws.

93. The preamble of the laws states the dates of the sit-