Page:The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789-1907, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged.pdf/244

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Constitution of the Year III

the legislators; the maintenance of society requires that those who compose it should both know and fulfill their duties.

2. All the duties of man and citizen spring from these two principles graven by nature in every heart:

Not to do to others that which you would not that they should do to you.

Do continually for others the good that you would wish to receive from them.

3. The obligations of each person to society consist in defending it, serving it, living in submission to the laws, and respecting those who are the agents of them.

4. No one is a good citizen unless he is a good son, good father, good brother, good friend, good husband.

5. No one is a virtuous man unless he is unreservedly and religiously an observer of the laws.

6. The one who violates the laws openly declares himself in a state of war with society.

7. The one who, without transgressing the laws, eludes them by stratagem or ingenuity wounds the interests of all he makes himself unworthy of their good will and their esteem.

8. It is upon the maintenance of property that the cultivation of the land, all the productions, all means of labor, and the whole social order rest.

9. Every citizen owes his services to the fatherland and to the maintenance of liberty, equality, and property whenever the law summons him to defend them.

Constitution.

1. The French Republic is one and indivisible.

2. The totality of the French citizens is the sovereign.

Title I.

3. France is divided into — departments.

These departments are . . . [list omitted].

4. The boundaries of the departments can be changed or rectified by the legislative body; but in that case, the area of a department cannot exceed one hundred square myriameters (four hundred common square leagues).

5. Each department is divided into cantons, each canton into communes.