The Decree Abolishing the Feudal System, August 11, 1789

The Decree Abolishing the Feudal System, August 11, 1789 The abolition of the feudal system, which took place during the famous night session of August 4-5, 1789, was caused by the reading of a cut through on the misery and disorder which prevailed in the provinces. The field congregation, in a fervor of enthusiasm and excitement, straightaway abolished legion(predicate) of the ancient abuses. The document here given is the revised order of magnitude, completed a week later. ARTICLE I. The National hookup hereby completely abolishes the feudal system.It decrees that, among the existing matures and due(p)s, both feudal and censuel, every last(predicate) those originating in or representing solid or person-to-person serfdom shall be abolished without indemnification. All other dues ar decl ared cashable, the terms and mode of redemption to be frozen(p) by the National gathering. Those of the said dues which are not extinguished by this decree shall continue to be colle cted until indemnification shall take place. II. The exclusive right to maintain pigeon houses and dovecotes is abolished.The pigeons shall be confined during the seasons fixed by the community. During such periods they shall be looked upon as game, and every one shall have the right to kill them upon his bear land. III. The exclusive right to hunt and to maintain uninclosed warrens is likewise abolished, and every land experienceer shall have the right to kill, or to have destroyed on his own land, all kinds of game, observing, however, such police regulations as may be accomplished with a view to the safety of the public.All hunting capitaineries, including the royal forests, and all hunting rights under whatever denomination, are likewise abolished. Provision shall be make, however, in a manner compatible with the regard due to property and liberty, for maintaining the personal pleasures of the king. The president of the Assembly shall be commissioned to ask of the king the retrieve of those sent to the galleys or exiled, s insinuate for violations of the unting regulations, as well as for the throw out of those at present imprisoned for offenses of this kind, and the dismissal of such cases as are now pending. IV. All manorial courts are hereby suppressed without indemnification. only if the magistrates of these courts shall continue to perform their functions until such time as the National Assembly shall fork up for the establishment of a new judicial system. V.Tithes of every description, as well as the dues which have been substituted for them, under whatever denomination they are known or collected (even when compounded for), possessed by laic or regular congregations, by holders of benefices, members of corporations (including the Order of Malta and other religious and array orders), as well as those devoted to the maintenance of churches, those impropriated to lay persons, and those substituted for the set congrue, are abolished, on cond ition, however, that some other method be devised to provide for the expenses of divine worship, the support of the officiating clergy, for the assistance of the poor, for repairs and rebuilding of churches and parsonages, and for the maintenance of all institutions, seminaries, schools, academies, asylums, and organizations to which the present funds are devoted.Until such provision shall be make and the former possessors shall enter upon the enjoyment of an income on the new system, the National Assembly decrees that the said tithes shall continue to be collected according to practice of law and in the customary manner. Other tithes, of whatever constitution they may be, shall be redeemable in such manner as the Assembly shall stipulate. Until this matter is adjusted, the National Assembly decrees that these, too, shall continue to be collected. VI. All perpetual ground rents, collectable either in money or in kind, of whatever nature they may be, whatever their origin and to whomsoever they may be due, . . . shall be redeemable at a rate fixed by the Assembly. No due shall in the future be created which is not redeemable. VII. The sale of judicial and municipal offices shall be abolished forthwith. Justice shall be dispensed gratis.Nevertheless the magistrates at present attribute such offices shall continue to exercise their functions and to receive their emoluments until the Assembly shall have made provision for indemnifying them. VIII. The fees of the country priests are abolished, and shall be discontinued so in short as provision shall be made for increasing the minimum net income portion congrue of the parish priests and the payment to the curates. A regulation shall be drawn up to determine the status of the priests in the towns. IX. Pecuniary privileges, personal or real, in the payment of taxes are abolished forever. Taxes shall be collected from all the citizens, and from all property, in the kindred manner and in the same form. Plans sh all be considered by which the taxes shall be paying proportionally by all, even for the last six months of the current year. X.Inasmuch as a national constitution and public liberty are of more advantage to the provinces than the privileges which some of these enjoy, and inasmuch as the surrender of such privileges is essential to the informal union of all parts of the realm, it is decreed that all the peculiar privileges, fiscal or otherwise, of the provinces, principalities, districts, cantons, cities, and communes, are once for all abolished and are absorbed into the law common to all Frenchmen. XI. All citizens, without distinction of birth, are eligible to every office or dignity, whether ecclesiastical, civil, or military and no profession shall imply some(prenominal) derogation. XII. Hereafter no remittances shall be made for annates or for whatsoever other purpose to the court of Rome, the vice legation at Avignon, or to the nunciature at Lucerne.The clergy of the dioc ese shall apply to their bishops in regard to the filling of benefices and dispensations, the which shall be granted gratis without regard to reservations, expectancies, and papal months, all the churches of France enjoying the same freedom. XIII. This member abolishes various ecclesiastical dues. XIV. Pluralities shall not be permitted hereafter in cases where the tax from the benefice or benefices held shall exceed the pairing of three thousand livres. Nor shall any individual be allowed to enjoy several allowances from benefices, or a pension and a benefice, if the revenue which he already enjoys from such sources exceeds the same sum of three thousand livres. XV.The National Assembly shall consider, in conjunction with the king, the report which is to be submitted to it relating to pensions, favors, and salaries, with a view to suppressing all such as are not deserved, and reducing those which shall prove excessive and the amount shall be fixed which the king may in the fut ure disburse for this purpose. XVI. The National Assembly decrees that a medal shall be struck in memory of the new-fashioned grave and important deliberations for the welfare of France, and that a Te Deum shall be cantillate in gratitude in all the parishes and the churches of France. XVII. The National Assembly solemnly proclaims the king, Louis XVI, the preserver of French Liberty. XVIII.The National Assembly shall present itself in a frame before the king, in order to submit to him the decrees which have just been passed, to sore to him the tokens of its most respectful gratitude, and to pray him to permit the Te Deum to be sing in his chapel, and to be present himself at this service. XIX. The National Assembly shall consider, promptly after the constitution, the drawing up of the laws necessary for the development of the principles which it has laid put down in the present decree. The latter shall be transmitted by the deputies without hold out to all the provinces, t ogether with the decree of the 10th of this month, in order that it may be printed, published, read from the parish pulpits, and posted up wherever it shall be deemed necessary.