Page:The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789-1907, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged.pdf/695

Rh non-approbation, the matter shall be decided by decree of the Council of State.

Any action in resumption or claim, must be taken within a period of six months, counting from the day on which the arrêté of the prefect or the decree shall have been inserted in the Journal Officiel. Action can be brought only in regard to donations or legacies and only the donors or their heirs in the direct line.

8. In case of the failure of an ecclesiastical establishment to proceed to the assignments prescribed above within a period of one year, provision for the case shall be made by decree.

At the expiration of the said period, the properties to be assigned shall, until their assignment, be placed under sequestration.

In cases where the properties assigned in virtue of article 4 and of the first paragraph of the present article shall be claimed, either from the beginning or subsequently, by several associations formed for the practice of same religion, the assignment which shall have been made thereof by the representatives of the establishment or by decree, may be contested before the Council of State in its judicial capacity, which shall pronounce thereon after taking into account all the circumstances of the case.

The claim shall be brought before the Council of State, within the period of one year counting from the date of the decree or counting from the notification to the prefectorial authority, by legal representatives of the public establishments of the religion of the assignment made by them. This notification must be made within the period of one month.

The assignment may be subsequently contested in case of division in the association in possession, the creation of a new association in consequence of a change in the territory of the ecclesiastical district, and in the case where the attributive association is in a position to fulfill its purpose.

11. The ministers of religion who, at the time of the promulgation of the present law, shall be more than sixty completed years of age and who shall have, during at least thirty years, filled ecclesiastical positions remunerated by the state, shall receive an annual pension for equal to three-fourths of their salaries.

Those who shall be more than forty-five years of age and