Page:The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789-1907, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged.pdf/694

664 From the promulgation of the present law the agents of the administration of the public lands, shall proceed to make a descriptive inventory and valuation: 1st, of the real and personal property of the said establishments; 2d, of the property of the state, departments, and communes of which the same establishments have the enjoyment.

This double inventory shall be drawn up with a hearing allowed to the legal representatives of the ecclesiastical establishments or those duly summoned by a notification made in the administrative form.

The agents intrusted with the inventory shall have the right to compel the communication of all titles and documents needed for their work.

4. Within the period of one year, dating from the promulgation of the present law, the real and personal property of the menses, fabriques, presbyterial councils, consistories, and other public establishments of religion, with all the charges and obligations which encumber them and with their special attribution, shall be transferred by the legal representatives of these establishments to the associations which, while conforming themselves to the rules of general organization of the religion of which they propose to assure the exercise, shall be legally formed according to the provisions of article 19 for the exercise of that religion in the former districts of the said establishments.

5. Those portions of the property designated in the preceding article which issue from the state and are not encumbered by a pious foundation created at a date subsequent to the law of 18 Germinal, Year X, shall be returned to the state.

The assignments of property shall not be made until one month after the promulgation of the rule of public administration provided for by article 43.

7. The personal or real properties devoted to a charitable purpose or any other attribution other than the exercise of religious worship, shall be assigned by the legal representatives of the ecclesiastical establishments to the service of public establishments or of public utility whose purpose is in conformity with that of the said property. This assignment must be approved by the prefect of the department in which the ecclesiastical establishment is situated. In case of