Page:The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789-1907, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged.pdf/259

Rh mulgated by the Executive Directory, and its responsibility in this respect lasts six years.

Laws are excepted for which the act of urgency has been approved by the Council of Ancients.

Title VI. Executive Power.

132. The executive power is delegated to a Directory of five members appointed by the legislative body, performing then the functions of an electoral body in the name of the nation.

133. The Council of the Five Hundred forms by secret ballot a list of ten times the number of the members of the Directory to be appointed and presents it to the Council of Ancients, which chooses, also by secret ballot, within this list.

134. The members of the Directory shall be at least forty years of age.

135. They can be taken only from among the citizens who have been members of the legislative body or ministers.

The provision of the present article shall be observed only commencing with the ninth year of the Republic.

136. Counting from the first day of the Year V of the Republic the members of the legislative body cannot he elected members of the Directory or ministers, either during the continuance of their legislative functions or during the first year after the expirations of these same functions.

137. The Directory is renewed in part by the election of one new member each year.

During the first four years, the lot shall decide upon the order of retirement of those who shall have been appointed for the first time.

138. None of the retiring members can be re-elected until after an interval of five years.

139. The ancestor and the descendant in the direct line, brothers, uncle and nephew, cousins of the first degree, and those related by marriage in these various degrees, cannot be at the same time members of the Directory, nor can they succeed them until after an interval of five years.

140. In case of the removal of one of the members of the Directory by death, resignation or otherwise, his successor is elected by the legislative body within ten days at the latest.