Page:The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789-1907, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged.pdf/209

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Constitution of the Year I
179

Accusation of those accused of plots against the general security of the republic;

Every alteration in the division of French territory into parts;

National rewards.

Of the Formation of the Laws.

56. Projects of law are preceded by a report.

57. The discussion cannot begin and the law cannot be provisionally decreed until fifteen days after the report.

58. The project is printed and sent to all the communes of the Republic under this title: Proposed law.

59. Forty days after the sending of the proposed law, if in one-half of the departments plus one, a tenth of the regularly constituted primary assemblies of each of them do not object, the project is accepted and becomes law.

60. If there is objection, the legislative body convokes the primary assemblies.

Of the Title of the Laws and Decrees.

61. The laws, the decrees, the judicial orders, and all public acts are superscribed: In the name of the French people, the year . . . of the French Republic.

Of the Executive Council.

62. There is an executive council composed of twenty-four members.

63. The electoral assembly of each department selects a candidate. The legislative body chooses the members of the council from the general list.

64. It is renewed by a half at each legislature in the last month of its session.

65. The council is charged with the direction and supervision of the general administration; it can act only in the execution of the laws and decrees of the legislative body.

66. It appoints, from outside of its own body, the principal agents of the general administration of the Republic.

67. The legislative body determines the number and the duties of these agents.

68. These agents do not form a council; they are separate and are without direct relations with each other; they do not exercise any personal authority.