Page:The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789-1907, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged.pdf/96

Rh The sum total of the direct tax of the kingdom is likewise divided into two hundred and forty-nine parts, and each department selects as many deputies as it pays parts of the tax.

Section II. Primary assemblies.—Selection of the electors.

1. In order to form the National Legislative Assembly the active citizens shall meet every two years in primary as assemblies in the cities and cantons.

The primary assemblies shall constitute themselves ipso facto on the second Sunday of March, if they have not been convoked earlier by the public functionaries designated by the law.

2. In order to be an active citizen, it is necessary:

To be born or to become a Frenchman;

To be fully twenty-five years of age;

To be domiciled in the city or in the canton for the time fixed by the law;

To pay in some place within the kingdom a direct tax at the least equal to the value of three days of labor, and to present the receipt therefor;

Not to be in a state of domestic service, that is to say, not to be a servant for wages;

To be registered upon the roll of the national guards in the municipality of his domicile;

To have taken the civic oath.

3. Every six years the legislative body shall fix the minimum and maximum of the value of a day's labor, and the department administrators shall make the local determination thereof for each department.

4. No one may exercise the rights of an active citizen in more than one place, nor cause himself to be represented by another.

5. The following are excluded from the exercise of the rights of active citizenship:

Those who are under indictment;

Those who, after having been declared to be in a state of bankruptcy or insolvency, proven by authentic documents, do not procure a general discharge from their creditors.

6. The primary assemblies shall select electors in proportion to the number of active citizens domiciled in the city or canton.

There shall be one elector selected at the rate of one hundred active citizens, whether present at the assembly or not.