Page:The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789-1907, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged.pdf/280

250 332. In case a treaty includes secret articles, the provisions of these articles cannot be destructive of the open articles nor contain any alienation of the territory of the Republic.

333. Treaties are valid only after having been examined and ratified by the legislative body; nevertheless the secret conditions can receive their execution provisionally from the very moment when they are arranged by the Directory.

334. Neither of the legislative councils deliberates over war or peace except in committee of the whole.

335. Foreigners, whether established in France or not, inherit from their kinsmen, whether French or foreign; they contract for, acquire, and receive estates situated in France, and dispose of them, just as French citizens, by all the means authorised by law.

Title XIII. Revision of the Constitution.

336. If experience makes known inconveniences from any articles of the constitution, the Council of Ancients may propose the revision of them.

337. The proposal of the Council of Ancients is in this case submitted for ratification to the Council of the Five Hundred.

338. When, within a space of nine years, the proposal of the Council of Ancients, ratified by the Council of the Five Hundred, has been made at three dates removed from one another by at least three years, an assembly of revision is convoked.

339. This assembly is formed of two members per department, all elected in the same manner as the members of the legislative body and meeting the same conditions as those demanded for the Council of Ancients.

340. The Council of Ancients designates, for the meeting of the assembly of revision, a place at least twenty myriameters distant from that where the legislative body sits.

341. The assembly of revision has the right to change the place of its residence, observing the distance prescribed in the preceding article.

342. The assembly of revision does not exercise any legislative or governmental function; it confines itself to the revision of the articles alone which have been designated by the legislative body.