Page:The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789-1907, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged.pdf/306

276 other two consuls is equal to three-tenths of that of the First Consul.

44. The government proposes the laws and makes the regulations necessary to secure their execution.

45. The government controls the receipts and expenses of the state in conformity with the annual law which fixes the amount of both of them; it superintends the coinage of money, of which the law alone orders the emission and fixes the denomination, weight, and stamp.

46. If the government is informed that some conspiracy is laid against the state, it can issue decrees of apprehension and arrest against the persons who are supposed to be the authors or accomplices of it; but if, within a period of ten days after their arrest, they are not set at liberty or put upon trial, the minister who signed the decree has committed the crime of arbitrary imprisonment.

47. The government provides for the internal security and the external defence of the state; it distributes the land and sea forces and controls their direction.

48. The active national guard is subject to the rules of the public administration: the reserve national guard is subject only to the law.

49. The government has charge of the foreign political relations, conducts negotiations, makes preliminary stipulations, signs and causes to be signed and concluded all treaties of peace and alliance, truce, neutrality, commerce, and other conventions.

50. Declarations of war and treaties of peace, alliance, and commerce are proposed, discussed, decreed, and promulgated as are the laws.

But the discussions and deliberations upon these matters, in the Tribunate as well as in the Legislative Body, take place in secret committee when the government demands it.

51. The secret articles of a treaty cannot be destructive of the open articles.

52. Under the direction of the consuls, a council of state is charged with drawing up projects of law and regulations of public administration, and with the settlement of difficulties which arise in administrative matters.

53. The orators charged to take the word, in the name of the government, before the Legislative Body, are always