and correspondence of the National Assembly, who, informed of the superabundance of grain in one Canton, and it's scarcity in another, would procure the interposition of Royal Authority towards main taining through the whole Kingdom the equilibrium of the first-rate support of human life. This is one reason among a thousand, to evince the necessity of that Assembly's permanency, and of the periodical change of it's members.

Our political Treatises, to gratify the leaders of Administration, are much employed in devising the means of increasing the Wealth of Nations. It seems that a State can never have too much wine, too much corn, too much cattle, and especially too much money, for to this all the rest ultimately point. But how comes it about that we have always a superfluity of that first Wealth of Empires, I mean the human species, seeing almost all over Europe it is so wretched, and it's cities swarming with inhabitants which they know not how to dispose of? A shepherd does not feel himself encumbered with the number of his sheep; he does not expose at the corner of his village the little lamb newly dropped from the mother; but fathers and mothers every day abandon their new-born infants in the squares of our Cities and at the gates of our Hospitals. The number of Foundlings in Paris amounts yearly to from five to six thousand, a full third of those who are born there. In this City so opulent and so indigent, the most miserable refuse is of some value; we see persons picking up at the corner of the streets, bones, broken bottles, ashes, old rags; an old cat there has her price, were it but for her

skin; but no one there sets any value on a miserable human being. That inhabitant of the fortunate kingdom of France, that child of GOD and of the Church, that King of Nature goes about soliciting from door to door the indulgence granted to the house-dog, that of demanding with a lamentable voice, from a being of his own species, of his own nation and of his own religion, a morsel of bread, which is frequently refused. It is much worse at the gate of a nobleman's hotel, where a Swiss will not so much as let him shew himself. It is worse still in his garret, from which he is driyen by famine, when shame, whose bite is keener than the tooth of a dog, and more repulsive than a Swiss, forbids him to quit it.

But beggary itself is no longer the resource of indigence, for they put mendicants in prison. It is therefore my wish, in order to meet the demands of the People, that every man in health out of employment, should have the right of demanding it of the Assembly of his Village or of his District. Should it have none to give him, his demand will be transmitted to the Assembly of the City with which it is connected; this last, supposing the case equal, will carry it to the Provincial Assembly, which will take care to transmit it to the National Assembly, should it be in the same state of impotency.

The National Assembly would thus have in the last resort the state of all the indigent families in the Kingdom, as it would have that of all their wants, and of their resources: it would accordingly employ it's good offices with the King for the establishment

of

of his indigent families, in the Provinces where labourers might be wanted, or in our colonies and in countries recently discovered, under a Government similar to that of the future Constitution, in order always to unite those Frenchmen to their Country, and to extend over the whole Earth the population, the power, and the felicity of their pa→ rent land. These daily provisions are additional reasons to evince the necessity of rendering the National Assembly permanent.

Thus Brittany and Bourdeaux with their heaths; Normandy with it's muds which the Sea inundates and leaves twice every day; Rochelle and Rochefort with their stagnant marches; Provence with it's rocks and plains of flint; Corsica with it's mountains and woods, the American Islands with their solitudes, and so many other lands conveyed by grant from the Crown, such as those of Corsica, given away in great lots of ten thousand acres at a stroke, and which remain uncultivated in the hands of their great moneyless proprietors, would find themselves raised into value by being parcelled out into small allotments, and would furnish open, ings without number for the overflowings of our hospitals, especially for those of the Foundling Hospital. Indigence cut close by the root, would cease to produce mendicity, theft and prostitution, which are the natural fruits of it. As to persons poor and infirm, they would be relieved at their own home, or in houses of mercy, from the funds raised and administered by the Assemblies of each district; to this purpose might be employed, the revenues of hospitals, those vast focuses of misery

VOL. IV.

and

and epidemic disease. Besides, as there would be no longer any healthy poor in the Kingdom, the number of sick poor would be greatly reduced.

Farther, by assigning to the petitions of the indi gent, a period for transmission from Assembly to Assembly, it was not my intention to clap fetters on their liberty; but I wished to suggest assured means of relief not only to them, but to the villages, to the cities, to the provinces, and to the State itself. If individuals sometimes have need of work, whole societies have frequently need of workmen. Michael Montaigne expressed a wish to have an Advertising Office established at Paris, to which persons in want, or superabounding, might mutually apply for information, whatever the case might be. His idea has been partly executed by means of hand-bills and newspapers; but these are hardly employed to any any objects but those of luxury, such as furniture, coaches, horses, houses, lands, but very rarely to advertise for men. The establishment should extend to the demands of the plains, of the vinces, and of the State itself. National Assembly alone is capable of embracing at once all public and private necessities. It is besides an act of justice; for if the State has a right to exact from the People militia-service, that of the royal navy and of the highways, in cases of urgent pressure, the People have likewise, under the pressure of want, a right to demand of the State the means of subsistence. Add to this, that every Frenchman has a right to address himself directly to the National Assembly; and if he

6

cities, of the proNow a permanent

chooses

chooses to pursue his fortunes out of the kingdom he should be at perfect liberty to quit it, as every stranger ought to have that of coming into it and of settling, with the free exercise of his religion, in order to fix among us, by the equity of our laws, the men whom we attract by the urbanity of our manners.

Confidence being restored between the three or ders, the interest of the two first harmonized with those of the People, and balanced by that of the King; the Rural, Municipal, Provincial, and National Assemblies, rendered permanent in their totality, periodical in their members, and harmonious in their deliberations; Agriculture delivered from all it's shackles, captainries, gabels, militiadraughts; individual liberty made sure to every Citizen in his fortune, his person, and his conscience; slavery abolished in the Colonies and on Mount Jura; the code of civil and criminal justice reformed; the territorial impost assessed proportionably to the extent of landed property, and to the exigencies of the State and of the National Debt; the means of subsistence multiplied, and secured to the People by the bulwarks opposed to the excessive accumulation of property: there will be reared, with respect to all those objects, a Constitution sanctioned by the King, the execution of which will be committed to the proper tribunals, to be henceforward considered as the national Code of Law

The Assembly has no occasion to make an attempt to comprize, in this Constitution, every possible case; they are innumerable, and there are some which it would be melancholy to foresee,