ART. 90. Every man capable of bearing arms is bound personally to assist in the defense of the country, in accordance with the special regulations provided by law.

ART. 91. The right of the communes to manage their local affairs, under the supervision of the state, shall be regulated by law.

ART. 92. All privileges granted by law in connection with nobility, title, or rank are abolished.

ART. 93. No feudal tenures, entails, or trusts in real property shall hereafter be created; a law shall determine how property now so burdened may be made freely transferable.

ART. 94. The provisions of Arts. 80, 87, and 88 are applicable to the military forces only within the restrictions established by the military laws.

IX

ART. 95. Proposals regarding the alteration of or additions to the present constitution may be made either in a regular or in an extraordinary session of the Rigsdag.

Should a proposal for a new constitutional provision be adopted by the two houses and should the government wish to forward the matter, the Rigsdag shall be dissolved and a general election held both for the Folkething and for the Landsthing. If the newly elected Rigsdag, in regular or extraordinary session, adopts the proposed amendment without change and the King approves it, it shall become a part of the constitution.

TEMPORARY PROVISIONS

1. The present members of the Landsthing, appointed by the King, shall retain their seats in the Landsthing of the Rigsdag for the term of twelve years from the dates of their respective appointments. The validity of their appointment is not affected by the dissolution of the Landsthing.

2. With respect to the procedure in the Court of Impeach

ment, until a new law is issued the law of March 3, 1852, shall remain in force, with the modifications required by the altered composition of the Court and by the provision of the last part of Art. 68.

3. The provisions of Art. 73 that judges shall not be dismissed except after judicial sentence, nor be transferred against their wishes, shall not apply to the present judges who also exercise administrative functions.

4. Until a reorganization of criminal procedure has been effected, the appeal from a sentence of imprisonment referred to in Art. 80 shall take place as in civil cases, but with additional notice; the appellant shall also be exempt from the use of stamped paper and from the payment of judicial fees. On the occasion of such an appeal the appellant shall be allowed access to counsel, and additional evidence may be laid before the superior court.2

Art. 5 of the temporary provisions related to the application of the election law of December 4, 1863; this law has been superseded by the eleccion law of July 12, 1867.

FRANCE1

Since 1789 France has undergone numerous changes in government, and each change has been embodied in constitutional documents. It will suffice here to enumerate the several constitutions which were in force before the definite establishment of the Third Republic:

1) The constitution of September 3, 1791, established a limited monarchy, but disappeared with the fall of the king in the succeeding year.

2) The republican constitution of June 24, 1793, had not been put in force before the fall of the Jacobins who framed it, and was disregarded by those who succeeded to their power.

3) The constitution of August 22, 1795, vested the executive power in five Directors, and the legislative power in a Council of Five Hundred and a Council of Ancients. It represents the conservative reaction from the Jacobin principles of 1793.

4) The usurpations of the Directory and the coup d'état of November 9, 1799, put an end to the constitution of 1795. Under the constitution of December 13, 1799, Napoleon gained as First Consul the supreme executive power to which he aspired.

5) The senatus-consulta of August 2 and 4, 1802, proclaimed Napoleon First Consul for life with extended powers, and on May 18, 1804, the Consulate was replaced by the Empire. The constitution was altered by several other less important acts between 1804 and 1814. Intimately connected with the first imperial constitution is the Additional Act of April 22, 1815, which by its liberal principles attempted to outbid the Bourbon charter of 1814; the Additional Act disappeared with the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.

6) Upon the restoration of the Bourbons the constitutional charter of June 4, 1814, was issued by Louis XVIII; with this constitution was first established the parliamentary system with

1In the preparation of the English texts of French constitutional and organic laws use has been made of the translation of Professor Charles F. A. Currier, issued as a supplement to the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science of March, 1893.

ministerial responsibility; the legislature was composed of two houses, one appointive, the other elective, but with a very limited electorate.

7) The constitution of August 14, 1830, and the organic laws of 1831 came as a result of the July revolution of 1830. The constitution of 1814 remained almost unchanged, except for a limited extension of the suffrage and the abolition of hereditary peerages.

8) The republican constitution of November 4, 1848, introduced universal suffrage, with an unicameral legislature, and an elective president chosen for four years and ineligible to succeed himself.

9) The constitution of January 14, 1852, extended for ten years the power of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte as president of the Republic; the senatus-consultum of November 7, ratified by the plebiscite of November 21 and 22, 1852, re-established the Empire. Between 1852 and 1870 the constitution was altered by numerous senatus-consulta, the most important of which was that of September 8, 1869, establishing ministerial responsibility.

10) The senatus-consultum of May 21, 1870, a codification of constitutional changes since 1860, was really a new imperial constitution, and was submitted to a vote of the people as such.

II) Imperial institutions in France were now destined to be of short duration; the Empire disappeared on September 4, 1870, when news reached Paris of the French disaster at Sedan. The Government of the National Defense, which succeeded the Empire, gave way in February, 1871, to a National Assembly which chose Thiers chief of the executive power of the French Republic.

For two years after 1871 nothing was done by the National Assembly toward the permanent establishment of the Republic. In fact the majority of the Assembly were monarchists; the overthrow of Thiers and the election of Marshal MacMahon as president were considered the first steps toward the restoration of monarchy, but the attitude of the Comte de Chambord wrecked the hopes of his supporters. Definite steps toward a constitutional organization were not taken until hope of a restoration of the Bourbons had disappeared.