HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



[37 



accept them.— >Art. 8. Before their 

 separation, and during the time of 

 their sitting, each council shall name 

 from among their members, a com- 

 mittee of twenty-five members. — 

 Art. 9. The committees appointed 

 by the two councils will, in con- 

 junction with the executive consu- 

 lar commission, determine upon all 

 urgent objects relative to the police, 

 legislation, and finance. — Art. 10. 

 To the committee of the council of 

 five hundred shall belons; the right 

 of proposing, and to that of the 

 council of elders that of sanctioning. 

 — Art. 11. The two committees 

 shall also, in the order above-men- 

 tioned, regulate the changes in 

 those parts of the constitution which 

 experience may have shewn to be 

 inconvenient or vicious. — Art. 12. 

 These changes can have no other 

 object but that of consolidating and 

 guaranteeing inviolably the sove- 

 reignty of the French people, the 

 republic one and indivisible, the 

 representative system, the division 

 of power, liberty, equality, and the 

 security of property. — Art. 13. The 

 executive consular commission may 

 lay before the committee their views 

 upon this subject — Art. 14. The 

 two committees are charged to pre- 

 pare a civil code. — Art. I.*;. Their 

 sittings shall be held at Paris in the 

 palace of the legislative body, 

 which they may convoke extraor- 

 dinarily for the ratification of peace, 

 or in case of great public danger. 

 — Art. l6. Tliese resolutions shall 

 be printed, and sent by extraordi- 

 nary couriers to the departments, 

 and solemnly published and stuck 

 up in all communes of the re- 

 public. 



As soon as the acceptance of the 

 elders was notified, the president, 

 tucien Buonaparte, addressed the 



council of five hundred, to the fol- 

 lowing effect — " Representatives 

 of the people, the liberty of France 

 Avas born in the Tennis-Court of 

 Versailles. From the immortal day 

 of the assembly at that place to the 

 present, it has been without efficacy 

 tossed about, a prey to different 

 factions, and subject to the weak- 

 ness and convulsive maladies of in- 

 fancy. It this day puts on the toga 

 virilis. The days of its convulsions 

 are at an end. No sooner have yovi 

 seated her on the confidence and 

 love of the French nation, peace 

 and plenty smile and sparkle on her 

 lips. Listen to the benedictions of 

 this people, of her armies, long the 

 sport of intestine factions, and let 

 their cries of acclamation penetrate 

 into the bottom of j'^our souls. Hear 

 also the sublime ciy of posterity : 

 ' If liberty was born in the Tennis- 

 Court of Versailles, she attained to 

 due strength in the Orangery of 

 St. Cloud. If the constituents of 

 1789 were the fathers of the revo- 

 lution, the legislators of the year 8 

 are the fathers and pacificators of 

 their country.' Already is the 

 sublime cry re-echoed by Europe. 

 — Every day it shall wax louder and 

 louder, and shall by and by fill the 

 hundred mouths of fame. You 

 have just created a magistracy of 

 an extraordinary and temporary 

 nature, which may be expected to 

 restore order and victory, the only 

 means of peace. Next to this ma- 

 gistracy you have appointed two 

 commissions to second its efforts, 

 and the improvement of the social 

 system, so dear to every heart. In 

 three months your consuls (who 

 were present) are to give an ac- 

 count of your proceedings. They 

 ai-e to labour for the good of their 

 cotemporaries, and of posterity.— 



