Te Deum pour la fédération du 14 juillet 1790, au Champ de Mars.
Te Deum laudamus: Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, |
Te Deum for the Federation of 14 July 1790 at the Champs de Mars
We praise you, O God, The Cherumbim and Seraphim Holy, holy, holy, |
How many times, whenever a public outcry echoed from all corners, has your parlement been ready to bring to the Sovereign its justifiable complaints against such obvious abuses as the Unigenitus Constitution? Touched by these public ills, only the justifiable fear of precipitously venturing facts of such importance when they have not yet been sufficiently proven in the judicial system could stop these dramatic steps.
Living in the city of Orléans, in the parish of Saint-Catherine, a woman by the name of Dupleix saw that she was falling dangerously ill from a disease and would soon die from it. She had asked the parish priest to administer the last rites. The priest went to her, but before doing anything else he asked her to state that she had submitted to the decisions of the Church. Not satisfied with the answer of this dying woman, who wanted to live and die within the Catholic, apostolic and Roman faith, the priest persisted. He asked her if she had submitted to the Unigenitus Constitution and told her that he would not administer the last rites until she accepted the Constitution. Then he left.
The illness became more threatening, and the priest was again summoned. The same questions, the same answers, the same refusal.
There are two important questionings here . . . the direct questions and preconditions requiring the dying woman to declare that she had submitted to the Constitution, as well as the priest's refusals to administer the last rites until she had satisfied him. . . .
The Church is necessarily a part of the body of the State. Any new danger from clerics, any enterprise that could lead to trouble for the State or shake the solid foundations of public tranquility, ties and commits ecclesiastics as members of the State and as subjects of Your Majesty.
Whatever they may say, two combined issues equally involve the rights of the Church and of the State. Also, the execution of these rights and the state police power belong to Your Majesty, both as the protector of the Church or as Sovereign responsible for maintaining the peace of the kingdom.
Such are the issues of marriage and vows. Such are the public scandals that Your Majesty always has an interest in suppressing and that the regulations accomplish for a number of royal cases. Such would be the abuse that the clerics could achieve with the power that is confided to them for administering the sacraments. From that point, there would be intervention and competition between the two powers in certain cases to conduct the clerics' trial in accordance with the laws of the kingdom. From that point, there would begin a means of recourse to the sovereign's authority or appeals as abuses, almost as old as the monarchy and that has been so useful to preceding kings, conserving the rights of your throne and our freedoms which always provide it the greatest support.
To contest the sovereign's rights in these important matters under the pretext that they deal directly or indirectly with the spirituality or administration of the sacraments, would be to attack the most permanent maxims and open a sure and easy way for clerics to increase their power and ruin royal authority. And in all of these cases your parlement, tasked by you and under your authority with watching over the public peace in the kingdom, has the right and obligation to propose legitimate solutions to this task as circumstances warrant and as soon as necessary.
If a confessor, unworthy of the sanctity of his ministry, got carried away to the point of profaning the sacraments in order to seduce the person confessing, whether it be on a spiritual or administrative matter, who could doubt that this abuse of the holy mysteries did not constitute an external and public crime which would immediately subject him to temporal law and the legitimate authority of the magistrates who exercise this justice in Your name? . . .
Sire, we know that the love of your People and the zeal and fidelity of your parlement is sufficient to prevent and ward off these extreme ills which we can only remember with sorrow. But the enslavement of the principles that strengthen royal authority and the tranquility of the State are the same in all of these cases mentioned above.
The sovereign to whom providence has confided the government of this great kingdom is, by the sole title of king and the right of his crown, also the defender of the Church. To defend the Church is to defend its legitimate rights and its ancient canons, and to have them executed by the clerics themselves in the entire expanse of his realm. From this defense comes the title of external bishop that is accorded to emperors and sovereigns. From this defense comes many examples of trials against clerics who, while teaching the truth of the Gospel, by their spurious enthusiasm slandered and personally attacked those where listening to them. This defense is often reiterated in the decrees and laws against causing public scandals by the indiscreet refusal of those who work in front of the altar. The strict observance of these ancient canons, which make up the fundamental basis of our freedoms, also make up the laws of the State. This observance is still in the hands of Your Majesty, and as soon as the clerics infringe on it, He is in his rights and has the obligation to provide it with his authority. . . .
These immutable principles have always been the solid foundation of the monarchy, and your parlement is tasked by you with watching over the public order. It has learned however that under the direction of a few bishops the priests of their dioceses are trying to establish the Constitution as a rule of faith, or at least all of the characteristics of such. They are attempting to remove the communion of the faithful from the heart of the Church, as well as all participation in the sacraments by those of your subjects who do not state above all else that they accept the Constitution purely and simply. Your parlement has the proof, acquired through judicial inquiry and by similar depositions given by honest witnesses, that under this pretext the parish priest of Saint-Catherine persists in repeatedly refusing to allow a sick woman to die without the sacraments. This woman states that she wants to die in the communion of the Catholic, apostolic and roman Church.
The threat of her imminent death increases every second. Based on new complaints, your parlement again sends back a request to the bishop of the diocese to provide the sacrament. At the same time, it is forced to again remind him of the need to warn us of anything that he deals with that could tend to disrupt the peace of the Church and State. . . . What will the consequences be when clerics can use fear to wring declarations that they have no right to require from people who would never declare as much if they were fully conscious and with their full faculties? With such suspect and dangerous ways as these to spread the rights of the Constitution, would it not be more proper to destroy them than to strengthen them? . . .
Respectfully,
Parlement, 24 July 1731
Signed: Portail.
The arbitrary refusal of the sacraments given to the dying, notably confession or the right to name their own confessor, multiplies daily. These nascent scandals and difficulties are capable of destroying respect for religion, tainting the submission due to Your Highness and delivering a cruel blow to public peace.
Your parlement, Sire, believes it is giving you one of the greatest proofs of its loyalty by representing to Your Majesty that now is the time to put into action the reform of equally pernicious abuses.
We protest, Sire, in truth, that your parlement does not intend, and has never intended, to impinge on the Legitimate rights of [the Roman Catholic Church's] spiritual power.
Full of the respect and veneration that all Christians must bear towards our religion, the parlement knows that is is only the Church which has the right to teach the faithful, to guide them on the path to salvation, to make decisions upon everything that concerns the dispensation and administration of the sacraments, and to determine the cases in which the faithful can participate and when they must be excluded.
But the same respect with which a Christian magistrate recognizes the Church's legislative power, in that which concerns the passage of souls and the dispensation of our holy mysteries, forces him to perceive the necessity that these laws, once established, must be exactly observed. And what greater and more indispensable work could there be for a Christian king, than to carry out these duties?
To the King alone belongs supreme power along with the ability to put into effect that which he commands; but this power derives from God; his principle duty therefore is to use this power to serve Him who bestows it.
The voice of the Church is the voice of God. Its decrees, in that which is within the province of its power, are absolute laws to which all the faithful and, in particular, the ministers of religion must obey . . . if they stray, should the Christian monarch allow these laws to be trampled with impunity?
The Church, whose power is entirely spiritual, does not have the exterior force to exact obedience. It is therefore necessary for the prince to come to its aid, to employ against offenders those weapons which God has placed in his hands; and while a prince might fear blame for undertaking this under the authority of the Church, it is, on the contrary, a tribute which he pays to the Church, in accordance with his views, by lending it the force which it does not have, to execute those laws which it has established. . . .
When [the Church] abuses its power by unjustly refusing benefits to those who have a right to claim them, there must be a reclamation of the spirit that employs force to remind them [the clergy] of their work.
The prince, by making use of his authority in this way, fulfills the dual protection which he owes, one to the Church to execute its orders, the other to his subjects so that they might enjoy the spiritual and material advantages that have belonged to them from the moment they had the good fortune to be born in his realm. . . .
How many times, Sire, did princes, your predecessors, use their authority to curb the persecutions which some ministers of the Church wanted to exercise against their subjects by prohibitions, censures, or unjust excommunications? . . .
The principles which govern your authority and your absolute sovereignty, are generally known, and no one dares to question them; we can hope that we shall never see anything arise to contradict this [situation]; but these fundamental truths, which constitute the essence of the sacred rights of your crown, demand that we, your magistrates, must always be alert against anything which could be a means to disturb them. . . .
If, therefore, a high minister of the Church should one day undertake to resuscitate false doctrine and to reestablish opinions which are contrary to your authority. . . subordinate ministers . . . feared to openly contravene them. They would have to refuse to give the note of confession to those who were known not to agree with this instruction [from the Archbishop of Paris], and sick people, who would not be able to speak out, might find themselves, in that situation, deprived of those longed-for alleviations and sources of help at the point of death.
What thing is more capable of making an impression on one of the faithful?
Sire,
The most essential interest of the Sovereign is to know the truth, and your parlement is tasked by the State to bring it to you. . . . Today it is a question of religion and the conservation of the State, both equally threatened by the alarming schism that has aroused our enthusiasm. This schism, too long overlooked, has sunk such deep roots and grows so rapidly each day that soon no barriers will be able to contain it.
Sire, the normal course of justice has already been disrupted. The most necessary formalities are desecrated, the People are angry, the guilty emboldened, their judges demeaned, intimidated, contradicted, or even bound by inaction. The violent shocks that this schism has brought have caused us to uncover a dominion being reborn within your states. It is an arbitrary dominion that recognizes neither laws, nor sovereign, nor magistrates, and for which religion is nothing more than a pretext. It is a domination for which princely authority is no more than an instrument that it dares to use or reject according to its interests. The fundamental laws of the State are nothing more than an inconvenient yoke, and the legitimate freedom of citizens is nothing more that a fictitious right. . . .
Laws are the sacred ties that bind and are the seal of this indissoluble commitment. Together the King, the State, and the Law form an inseparable trinity. Strengthening the King's throne and making its sovereignty inviolable, maintaining the obedience and tranquility of the subjects, assuring their rights and legitimate freedom, in a word, making the State eternal, formidable from without and serene within . . . these are the fruits that grow from strict obedience of the law. Based on reflection and the experiences of the greatest princes and the most consummate men, and dictated solely for the good of the state and the true interests of the Prince, only laws can protect the sovereign from surprises, inspire the public trust, and stop those from any rank of society from causing problems for the State. Never has there been a revolution that was not hatched by changing the law.
Sire, there is neither a more important principle, nor one more generally accepted. Politicians, legal advisers, magistrates, even sovereigns themselves have all recognized that there can be a flourishing kingdom only by bringing together the subjects' obedience of the King, and King's obedience of the law. . . .
Filled with the most poignant love for Your Majesty's sacred person and jealous of increasing in all your subjects the feelings that tie them to you, as if that was possible, your parlement can only fear that which attempts to divide them. In the hands of a Prince as fair, they will always respect the use of his supreme power. But allow us, Sire, to tell you that these sudden and shocking misfortunes, these bursts of dreadful wrath that only cause hardship and that herald nothing but austerity, can only spread terror. And the French, in whom love is the tenet and gauge of fidelity, become alarmed and troubled as soon as they fear their sovereign. If he is gentle with his People, it is more natural for them to feel and state over and over, "May justice and kindness keep the King, and may his throne be strengthened by clemency." Thus they become concerned, Sire, when they see themselves abandoned to the clerics and exposed to the arbitrary application of power mistakenly placed in the hands of the ecclesiastics. The power of the clerics will soon have no limits beyond those of their own organization, and will subjugate the People in a dominion rising from the ruins of their liberty. The clerics are capable of using the People's slavery for whatever purpose they desire. Your subjects see themselves being carried away, so to speak, to a realm so different from yours, and which, in their eyes, offers nothing but risks and uncertainty. Being taken to a realm that offers them nothing but a frightful spectacle of citizens already deprived of their legitimate freedom. They see houses desolated by the loss of their most important members, magistrates removed from office, entire families required to go elsewhere to receive asylum from captivity. Shuddering in this disgrace too often takes on the form of resentment and revenge towards one's adversaries! . . .
Sire, we beg you not to let yourself be distracted from the real cause of so many ills: their principle is this infinite number of orders [from Rome] that have taken your religion by surprise. The only way to stop their flow is to stop ceding your authority to the clerics who abuse and compromise it. We witnessed this with unbelievable indecency when, in the grand hall of your parlement, a provincial bishop was on trial for influencing election results. He had used one of Your Majesty's orders that were countersigned by a minister that had been out of office for ten years.
Sire, forgive your parlement for giving you these details. We know Your heart, and to present you the unfortunate people of your empire is to touch its most sensitive spot. Those subjects who the senior clerics oppress by their credibility. Those subjects who shudder in exile and prison without knowing the crime of which they are accused and without the means to prove their innocence. Should these subjects not rest assured of Your heart's generosity as soon as You hear their complaints?
. . . Innocent Christians find themselves reduced to the cruel alternative of being regarded as indifferent to the sacraments if they do not request them, or undergoing a scandalous and unfair refusal if they do. Sire, it is time to show these ministers of the Church that they are abusing your indulgence and that your intention is not to authorize the schism that, for the happiness of your People, you have so often condemned.
This is the country of sects. An Englishman, as a free man, goes to Heaven by whatever road he pleases.
Yet, though everyone here may serve God in his own fashion, their genuine Religion, the one in which people make their fortune, is the sect of Episcopalians, called the Church of England, or preeminently The Church. No one can hold office in England or in Ireland unless he is a faithful Anglican. This argument, in itself, a convincing proof, has converted so many nonconformists that today not a twentieth of the population lives outside the lap of the established Church.
The Anglican clergy has retained many of the Catholic ceremonies, particularly that of gathering in tithes with the most scrupulous attention. They also have the pious ambition of being the Masters.
Moreover, they work up in their flocks as much hold zeal against nonconformists as possible. This zeal was lively enough under the government of the Tories in the last years of Queen Anne, but it went no further than sometimes breaking the windows of heretical chapels; for the fury of the sects was over, in England, with the civil wars, and under Queen Anne nothing was left but the restless noises of a sea still heaving a long time after the storm. When Whigs and Tories were rending their native land as Guelphs and Ghibellines once had done, it was of course necessary that religion should become a party issue. The Tories were for episcopacy, the Whigs wanted to abolish it—but when they were on top they were content to humble it.
In the days when Harley, Earl of Oxford, and Lord Bolingbroke were having people drink the health of the Tories, the Church of England looked upon them as the defenders of its holy privileges. The lower house of convocation, which is a sort of house of commons made up of clergymen, had then some importance; at least they enjoyed the liberty of meeting, or arguing controversial points, and of now and then burning a few impious books—that is, books written against them. The ministry, which is a Whig one nowadays, does not even allow these gentlemen to hold their convocation; they are reduced, in the obscurity of their parishes, to the sad occupation of praying for a government they would not be sorry to distress. As for the bishops, who are twenty-six in all, they sit in the House of Lords in spite of the Whigs, for the old abuse of considering them the equivalent of barons still subsists; but they have no more power in the House than the ducal peers in the Parlement of Paris.
There is a clause in the oath that one must take to the state that sorely tries the Christian patience of these gentlemen: this is one's promise to be of the Church as it was established by law. There is hardly a bishop, a dean, an archdeacon, who does not think he holds his position by divine right; it is therefore highly mortifying to them to have to acknowledge that they owe everything to a miserable law made by profane laymen. A monk (Father Courayer) recently wrote a book to confirm the validity and the succession of ordinations in the Church of England. This work was condemned in France, but do you think it pleased the English ministry? Not in the least. It's of very little concern to these cursed Whigs whether the succession of bishops has been interrupted in their country or not, and whether Bishop Parker was consecrated in a tavern (as it is rumored) or in church. They prefer that bishops derive their authority from Parliament rather than from the Apostles. Lord B. says that this concept of divine right can only make tyrants in miters but that citizens are made by the law.
With regard to morals, the Anglican clergy are better ordered than those of France, and this is the reason: all clergymen are brought up in Oxford University, or in Cambridge far from the corruption of the capital. They are not called to high station in the Church until very late, and at an age when men have no other passion but avarice, if their ambition goes unfed. Positions of rank are here the reward of long service in the Church just as in the army; one does not see young fellows made bishops or colonels on leaving school. Besides, the priests are almost all married; the awkwardness they pick up in the university, and the fact that, socially, Englishmen have little to do with women, result in a bishop's ordinarily being forced to content himself with his own wife. Clergymen go to the tavern sometimes, for custom allows it; if they get drunk they do so in a serious-minded way and with perfect propriety.
That indefinable being which is neither ecclesiastical nor secular—in a word, that which is called an Abbé is a species unknown in England. Clergymen here are all reserved, by temperament, and almost all pedantic. When they learn that in France young men, who are known for their debauchery and who have been raised to the prelacy by the plots of women, make love in public, divert themselves with the composing of sentimental songs, entertain daily with long and exquisite supper parties, and go from there to beseech the light of the Holy Spirit, and boldly to call themselves the successors of the Apostles—then the English thank God they are Protestants. But they are nasty heretics, fit to be burned to Hell and back, as Master François Rabelais says. That's why I keep out of it.
These gentlemen, who also have some churches in England, have made grave airs and severe expressions all the fashion in this country. To them is owing the sanctification of Sunday in the three kingdoms. On that day it is forbidden to work and play, which is double the severity of the Catholic churches. No opera, no plays, no concerts in London on Sunday; even cards are so expressly forbidden that only the aristocracy, and those we call well-bred people, play on that day. The rest of the nation go to church, to the tavern, and to the brothel.
Although the Episcopalian and the Presbyterian are the two main sects in Great Britain, all others are welcome there and live pretty comfortably together, though most of their preachers detest one another almost as cordially as a Jansenist damns a Jesuit.
Go into the Exchange in London, that place more venerable than many a court, and you will see representatives of all the nations assembled there for the profit of mankind. There the Jew, the Mahometan, and the Christian deal with one another as if they were of the same religion and reserve the name of infidel for those who go bankrupt. There the Presbyterian trusts the Anabaptist, and the Church of England man accepts the promise of the Quaker. On leaving these peaceable and free assemblies, some go to the synagogue, others in search of a drink; this man is on the way to be baptized in a great tub in the name of the Father, by the Son, to the Holy Ghost; that man is having the foreskin of his son cut off, and a Hebraic formula mumbled over the child that he himself can make nothing of; these others are going to their church to await the inspiration of God with their hats on; and all are satisfied.
If there were only one religion in England, there would be danger of tyranny; if there were two, they would cut each other's throats; but there are thirty, and they live happily together in peace.
A great question is pending before the supreme tribunal of France. Will the Jews be citizens or not?
Already, this question has been debated in the National Assembly; and the orators, whose intentions were equally patriotic, did not agree at all on the result of their discussion. Some wanted Jews admitted to civil status. Others found this admission dangerous. A third opinion consisted of preparing the complete improvement of the lot of the Jews by gradual reforms.
In the midst of all these debates, the national assembly believed that it ought to adjourn the question. . . . This adjournment was based on the necessity of further clarifying an important question; of seeking more positive information about what the Jews do and what they can be; of knowing more exactly what is in their favor and what is not; and finally, of preparing opinion by a thorough discussion for the decree, whatever it may be, that will definitively pronounce on their destiny.
It was also said that the adjournment was based on the necessity of knowing with assurance what were the true desires of the Jews; given, it was added, the disadvantages of according to this class of men rights more extensive than those they want.
But it is impossible that such a motive could have determined the decree of the National Assembly.
First, the wish of the Jews is perfectly well-known, and cannot be equivocal. They have presented it clearly in their addresses of 26 and 31 August, 1789. The Jews of Paris repeated it in a new address of 24 December. They ask that all the degrading distinctions that they have suffered to this day be abolished and that they be declared CITIZENS.
But moreover, how could it be supposed that the legislators, who trace all their principles to the immutable source of reason and justice, could have wanted to turn away in this matter from their accustomed manner of proceeding to seek what they should do, not in what should be, but solely in what is asked of them? . . . It is not therefore because it was believed important to know exactly what the desires of the Jews are, that the question was adjourned, but because it was judged worthy of a thorough investigation.
Their desires, moreover, as we have just said, are well known; and we will repeat them here. They ask to be CITIZENS.
And the right that they have to be declared such; the disadvantages that would result from a decree opposed to their wishes; all these grounds, and others still, will be set forth in this writing, with the energy suited to men who demand, not a favor, but an act of justice.
Finally, none of the objections made by their adversaries, or rather by the adversaries of their admission to civil status, will remain without response. . . .
If they only had to prevail upon justice, they would have little to say. But they have to combat a prejudice, and this prejudice is still so present in so many minds that they will always fear not having said enough. People argue, moreover, from their religion, their customs, their laws, as if they knew perfectly all these subjects; and it is important to draw attention to errors, which are in this regard widespread, accredited, and which perpetuate the prejudice that oppresses the Jews.
Here is, then, the plan of their memoir. They will begin by establishing the principles which require the right of citizens for the Jews. They will prove, next, that France itself would benefit from according this right to them. They will recall and combat the objections used to deny them civil status. Finally, they will demonstrate that the right of citizens should be accorded to the Jews without restriction and without delay; that is, that it would be at once unjust and dangerous to want to prepare them to receive citizenship by gradual improvements. . . .
[Then begins a detailed examination of the various charges against the Jews.] In truth, [the Jews] are of a religion that is condemned by the one that predominates in France. But the time has passed when one could say that it was only the dominant religion that could grant access to advantages, to prerogatives, to the lucrative and honorable posts in society. For a long time they confronted the Protestants with this maxim, worthy of the Inquisition, and the Protestants had no civil standing in France. Today, they have just been reestablished in the possession of this status; they are assimilated to the Catholics in everything; the intolerant maxim that we have just recalled can no longer be used against them. Why would they continue to use it as an argument against the Jews?
In general, civil rights are entirely independent from religious principles. And all men of whatever religion, whatever sect they belong to, whatever creed they practice, provided that their creed, their sect, their religion does not offend the principles of a pure and severe morality, all these men, we say, equally able to serve the fatherland, defend its interests, contribute to its splendor, should all equally have the title and the rights of citizen. . . .
[The Jews] are reproached at the same time for the vices that make them unworthy of civil status and the principles which render them at once unworthy and incompetent. A rapid glance at the bizarre as well as cruel destiny of these unfortunate individuals will perhaps remove the disfavor with which some seek to cover them and will show if it is right to make them all the reproaches that have been addressed to them.
Always persecuted since the destruction of Jerusalem, pursued at times by fanaticism and at others by superstition, by turn chased from the kingdoms that gave them an asylum and then called back to these same kingdoms, excluded from all the professions and arts and crafts, deprived even of the right to be heard as witnesses against a Christian, relegated to separate districts like another species of man with whom one fears having communication, pushed out of certain cities which have the privilege of not receiving them, obligated in others to pay for the air that they breathe as in Augsburg where they pay a florin an hour or in Bremen a ducat a day, subject in several places to shameful tolls. Here is the list of a part of the harassment still practiced today against the Jews.
And they would dare to complain of the state of degradation into which some of them can be plunged! They would dare to complain of their ignorance and their vices! Oh! Do not accuse the Jews, for that would only precipitate onto the Christians themselves all the weight of these accusations.
The vices of some of them are the work of the peoples who have given them shelter; the degradation of others is the fruit of the institutions that surround them. To say everything in one word, it is not at all the degradation and vices with which they are reproached that has attracted the harassment which overwhelms them but rather these harassments have produced their degradation and their vices. . . .
Let us now enter into more details. The Jews have been accused of the crime of usury. But first of all, all of them are not usurers; and it would be as unjust to punish them all for the offense of some as to punish all the Christians for the usury committed by some of them and the speculation of many. For a great many years now, moreover, the courts have heard fewer and fewer complaints about usury by the Jews. And, often, the Christians who accused them have given up their complaints.
Reflect, then, on the condition of the Jews. Excluded from all the professions, ineligible for all the positions, deprived even of the capacity to acquire property, not daring and not being able to sell openly the merchandise of their commerce, to what extremity are you reducing them? You do not want them to die, and yet you refuse them the means to live: you refuse them the means, and you crush them with taxes. You leave them therefore really no other resource than usury; and especially, you leave only this resource to the most numerous class of these individuals, for whose needs the legitimate interest from a modest sum of money is far from being sufficient. . . .
Everything that one would not have dared to undertake, moreover, or what one would only have dared to undertake with an infinity of precautions a long time ago, can now be done and one must dare to undertake it in this moment of universal regeneration, when all ideas and all sentiments take a new direction; and we must hasten to do so. Could one still fear the influence of a prejudice against which reason has appealed for such a long time, when all the former abuses are destroyed and all the former prejudices overturned? Will not the numerous changes effected in the political machine uproot from the people's minds most of the ideas that dominated them? Everything is changing; the lot of the Jews must change at the same time; and the people will not be more surprised by this particular change than by all those which they see around them everyday. This is therefore the moment, the true moment to make justice triumph: attach the improvement of the lot of the Jews to the revolution; amalgamate, so to speak, this partial revolution to the general revolution. Your efforts will be crowned with success, and the people will not protest, and time will consolidate your work and render it unshakable.
Duport: I have one very short observation to make to the Assembly, which appears to be of the highest importance and which demands all its attention. You have regulated by the Constitution, Sirs, the qualities deemed necessary to become a French citizen, and an active citizen: that sufficed, I believe, to regulate all the incidental questions that could have been raised in the Assembly relative to certain professions, to certain persons. But there is a decree of adjournment that seems to strike a blow at these general rights: I speak of the Jews. To decide the question that concerns them, it suffices to lift the decree of adjournment that you have rendered and which seems to suspend the question in their regard. Thus, if you had not rendered a decree of adjournment on the question of the Jews, it would not have been necessary to do anything; for, having declared by your Constitution how all peoples of the earth could become French citizens and how all French citizens could become active citizens, there would have been no difficulty on this subject.
I ask therefore that the decree of adjournment be revoked and that it be declared relative to the Jews that they will be able to become active citizens, like all the peoples of the world, by fulfilling the conditions prescribed by the Constitution. I believe that freedom of worship no longer permits any distinction to be made between the political rights of citizens on the basis of their beliefs and I believe equally that the Jews cannot be the only exceptions to the enjoyment of these rights, when pagans, Turks, Muslims, Chinese even, men of all the sects, in short, are admitted to these rights.
Decree of the National Assembly, 27 September 1791:
The National Assembly, considering that the conditions necessary to be a French citizen and to become an active citizen are fixed by the Constitution, and that every man meeting the said conditions, who swears the civic oath, and engages himself to fulfill all the duties that the Constitution imposes, has the right to all of the advantages that the Constitution assures;
Revokes all adjournments, reservations, and exceptions inserted into the preceding decrees relative to Jewish individuals who will swear the civic oath which will be regarded as a renunciation of all the privileges and exceptions introduced previously in their favor.
The representatives of the French people, constituted as a National Assembly, and considering that ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole causes of public misfortunes and governmental corruption, have resolved to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural, inalienable and sacred rights of man: so that by being constantly present to all the members of the social body this declaration may always remind them of their rights and duties; so that by being liable at every moment to comparison with the aim of any and all political institutions the acts of the legislative and executive powers may be the more fully respected; and so that by being founded henceforward on simple and incontestable principles the demands of the citizens may always tend toward maintaining the constitution and the general welfare.
In consequence, the National Assembly recognizes and declares, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of man and the citizen:
1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on common utility.
2. The purpose of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.
3. The principle of all sovereignty rests essentially in the nation. No body and no individual may exercise authority which does not emanate expressly from the nation.
4. Liberty consists in the ability to do whatever does not harm another; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no other limits than those which assure to other members of society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by the law.
5. The law only has the right to prohibit those actions which are injurious to society. No hindrance should be put in the way of anything not prohibited by the law, nor may any one be forced to do what the law does not require.
6. The law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to take part, in person or by their representatives, in its formation. It must be the same for everyone whether it protects or penalizes. All citizens being equal in its eyes are equally admissible to all public dignities, offices, and employments, according to their ability, and with no other distinction than that of their virtues and talents.
7. No man may be indicted, arrested, or detained except in cases determined by the law and according to the forms which it has prescribed. Those who seek, expedite, execute, or cause to be executed arbitrary orders should be punished; but citizens summoned or seized by virtue of the law should obey instantly, and render themselves guilty by resistance.
8. Only strictly and obviously necessary punishments may be established by the law, and no one may be punished except by virtue of a law established and promulgated before the time of the offense, and legally applied.
9. Every man being presumed innocent until judged guilty, if it is deemed indispensable to arrest him, all rigor unnecessary to securing his person should be severely repressed by the law.
10. No one should be disturbed for his opinions, even in religion, provided that their manifestation does not trouble public order as established by law.
11. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may therefore speak, write, and print freely, if he accepts his own responsibility for any abuse of this liberty in the cases set by the law.
12. The safeguard of the rights of man and the citizen requires public powers. These powers are therefore instituted for the advantage of all, and not for the private benefit of those to whom they are entrusted.
13. For maintenance of public authority and for expenses of administration, common taxation is indispensable. It should be apportioned equally among all the citizens according to their capacity to pay.
14. All citizens have the right, by themselves or through their representatives, to have demonstrated to them the necessity of public taxes, to consent to them freely, to follow the use made of the proceeds, and to determine the means of apportionment, assessment, and collection, and the duration of them.
15. Society has the right to hold accountable every public agent of the administration.
16. Any society in which the guarantee of rights is not assured or the separation of powers not settled has no constitution.
17. Property being an inviolable and sacred right, no one may be deprived of it except when public necessity, certified by law, obviously requires it, and on the condition of a just compensation in advance.
Art. 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
Art. 2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Art. 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Art. 4. No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.
Art. 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Art. 6. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.
Art. 7. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.
Art. 8. Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.
Art. 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Art. 10. Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
Art. 11. 1. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the Guarantees necessary for his defence.
2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act of omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall, heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.
Art. 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
Art. 13. 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.
2. Everyone has the right to leave any country including his own, and to return to his country.
Art. 14. 1. Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
2. This right may not be in invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Art. 15. 1. Everyone has the right to a nationality.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
Art. 16. 1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
2. Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
3. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
Art. 17. 1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Art. 18. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Art. 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Art. 20. 1. Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
2. No one may be compelled to belong to an association.
Art. 21. 1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
2. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.
Art. 22. Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Art. 23. 1. Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
4. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Art. 24. Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
Art. 25. 1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control,
2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
Art. 26. 1. Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
2. Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
3. Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.
Art. 27. 1. Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.
2. Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.
Art. 28. Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.
Art. 29. 1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
3. These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.
Art. 30. Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
The French people, convinced that forgetfulness and contempts of the natural rights of man are the sole causes of the miseries of the world, have resolved to set forth in a solemn declaration these sacred and inalienable rights, in order that all the citizens, being able to compare unceasingly the acts of the government with the aim of every social institution, may never allow themselves to be oppressed and debased by tyranny; and in order that the people may always have before their eyes the foundations of their liberty and their welfare, the magistrate the rule of his duties, the legislator the purpose of his commission.
In consequence, it proclaims in the presence of the supreme being the following declaration of the rights of man and citizen.
1. The aim of society is the common welfare. Government is instituted in order to guarantee to man the enjoyment of his natural and imprescriptible rights.
2. These rights are equality, liberty, security, and property.
3. All men are equal by nature and before the law.
4. Law is the free and solemn expression of the general will; it is the same for all, whether it protects or punishes; it can command only what is just and useful to society; it can forbid only what is injurious to it.
5. All citizens are equally eligible to public employments. Free peoples know no other grounds for preference in their elections than virtue and talent.
6. Liberty is the power that belongs to man to do whatever is not injurious to the rights of others; it has nature for its principle, justice for its rule, law for its defense; its moral limit is in this maxim: Do not do to another that which you do not wish should be done to you.
7. The right to express one's thoughts and opinions by means of the press or in any other manner, the right to assemble peaceably, the free pursuit of religion, cannot be forbidden.
The necessity of enunciating these rights supposes either the presence or the fresh recollection of despotism.
8. Security consists in the protection afforded by society to each of its members for the preservation of his person, his rights, and his property.
9. The law ought to protect public and personal liberty against the oppression of those who govern.
10. No one ought to be accused, arrested, or detained except in the cases determined by law and according to the forms that it has prescribed. Any citizen summoned or seized by the authority of the law, ought to obey immediately; he makes himself guilty by resistance.
11. Any act done against man outside of the cases and without the forms that the law determines is arbitrary and tyrannical; the one against whom it may be intended to be executed by violence has the right to repel it by force.
12. Those who may incite, expedite, subscribe to, execute or cause to be executed arbitrary legal instruments are guilty and ought to be punished.
13. Every man being presumed innocent until he has been pronounced guilty, if it is thought indispensable to arrest him, all severity that may not be necessary to secure his person ought to be strictly repressed by law.
14. No one ought to be tried and punished except after having been heard or legally summoned, and except in virtue of a law promulgated prior to the offense. The law which would punish offenses committed before it existed would be a tyranny: the retroactive effect given to the law would be a crime.
15. The law ought to impose only penalties that are strictly and obviously necessary: the punishments ought to be proportionate to the offense and useful to society.
16. The right of property is that which belongs to every citizen to enjoy, and to dispose at his pleasure of his goods, income, and of the fruits of his labor and his skill.
17. No kind of labor, tillage, or commerce can be forbidden to the skill of the citizens.
18. Every man can contract his services and his time, but he cannot sell himself nor be sold: his person is not an alienable property. The law knows of no such thing as the status of servant; there can exist only a contract for services and compensation between the man who works and the one who employs him.
19. No one can be deprived of the least portion of his property without his consent, unless a legally established public necessity requires it, and upon condition of a just and prior compensation.
20. No tax can be imposed except for the general advantage. All citizens have the right to participate in the establishment of taxes, to watch over the employment of them, and to cause an account of them to be rendered.
21. Public relief is a sacred debt. Society owes maintenance to unfortunate citizens, either procuring work for them or in providing the means of existence for those who are unable to labor.
22. Education is needed by all. Society ought to favor with all its power the advancement of the public reason and to put education at the door of every citizen.
23. The social guarantee consists in the action of all to secure to each the enjoyment and the maintenance of his rights: this guarantee rests upon the national sovereignty.
24. It cannot exist if the limits of public functions are not clearly determined by law and if the responsibility of all the functionaries is not secured.
25. The sovereignty resides in the people; it is one and indivisible, imprescriptible, and inalienable.
26. No portion of the people can exercise the power of the entire people, but each section of the sovereign, in assembly, ought to enjoy the right to express its will with entire freedom.
27. Let any person who may usurp the sovereignty be instantly put to death by free men.
28. A people has always the right to review, to reform, and to alter its constitution. One generation cannot subject to its law the future generations.
29. Each citizen has an equal right to participate in the formation of the law and in the selection of his mandatories or his agents.
30. Public functions are necessarily temporary; they cannot be considered as distinctions or rewards, but as duties.
31. The offenses of the representatives of the people and of its agents ought never to go unpunished. No one has the right to claim for himself more inviolability than other citizens.
32. The right to present petitions to the depositories of the public authority cannot in any case be forbidden, suspended, nor limited.
33. Resistance to oppression is the consequence of the other rights of man.
34. There is oppression against the social body when a single one of its members is oppressed: there is oppression against each member when the social body is oppressed.
35. When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people and for each portion of the people the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties.