Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, drafted by General Lafayette (sometimes with Thomas Jefferson) and

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Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, drafted by General Lafayette (sometimes with Thomas Jefferson) and Honore Mirabeau. Approved by the National Assembly of France, August 26,1789.

Articles:

1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.

2. The aim 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 resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.

4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.

5. Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for bylaw.

6. Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes. All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all dignities and to all public positions and occupations, according to their abilities, and without distinction except that of their virtues and talents.

7. No person shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed, any arbitrary order, shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense.

8. The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue of a law passed and promulgated before the commission of the offense.

9. As all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty, if arrest shall be deemed indispensable, all harshness not essential to the securing of the prisoner's person shall be severely repressed by law.

10. No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.

11. The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined bylaw.

12. The security of the rights of man and of the citizen requires public military forces. These forces are, therefore, established for the good of all and not for the personal advantage of those to whom they shall be intrusted.

13. A common contribution is essential for the maintenance of the public forces and for the cost of administration. This should be equitably distributed among all the citizens in proportion to their means.

14. All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contribution; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assessment and of collection and the duration of the taxes.

15. Society has the right to require of every public agentan account of his administration.

16. A society in which the observance of the law is not assured, nor the separation of powers defined, has no constitution at all.

17. Since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condition that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified.?

Source 3: Introduction to the Declaration of the Rights ofWomen, by Olympe de Gouge, 1791.

Olympe de Gouges, a butcher's daughter, wrote the declaration,directly challenging the inferiority presumed of women. Herattempts to push this idea lead to her being charged with treasonduring the rule of the National Convention. She was quicklyarrested, tried, and on November 3, 1793, executed by theguillotine.

?Man, are you capable of being just? It is a woman who poses thequestion; you will not deprive her of that right at least. Tell me,what gives you sovereign empire to oppress my sex? Your strength?Your talents? Observe the Creator in his wisdom; survey in all hergrandeur that nature with whom you seem to want to be in harmony,and give me, if you dare, an example of this tyrannical empire. Goback to animals, consult the elements, study plants, finally glanceat all the modifications of organic matter, and surrender to theevidence when I offer you the means; search, probe, anddistinguish, if you can, the sexes in the administration of nature.Everywhere you will find them mingled; everywhere they cooperate inharmonious togetherness in this immortal masterpiece.

Man alone has raised his exceptional circumstances to aprinciple. Bizarre, blind, bloated with science and degenerated--ina century of enlightenment and wisdom--into the crassest ignorance,he wants to command as a despot a sex which is in full possessionof its intellectual faculties; he pretends to enjoy the Revolutionand to claim his rights to equality in order to say nothing moreabout it.?

Source 5: The opening of the French Civil Code, Napoleon,1803-4.

?PRELIMINARY TITLE

Of the Publication, Effect, and Application of the Laws inGeneral.

Decreed 5th of March, 1803. Promulgated 15th of the sameMonth

Articles

The laws are executory throughout the whole French territory, byvirtue of the promulgation thereof made by the first consul.They shall be executed in every part of the republic, from themoment at which their promulgation can have been known?
The law ordains for the future only; it has no retrospectiveoperation.
The laws of police and public security bind all the inhabitantsof the territory.Immoveable property, although in the possession of foreigners, isgoverned by the French law.The laws relating to the condition and privileges of persons governFrenchmen, although residing in a foreign country.
The judge who shall refuse to determine under pretext of thesilence, obscurity, or insufficiency of the law, shall be liable tobe proceeded against as guilty of a refusal of justice.
The judges are forbidden to pronounce, by way of general andlegislative determination, on the causes submitted to them.
Private agreements must not contravene the laws which concernpublic order and good morals.?