The French Revolution 407 VI. All perpetual ground rents, payable 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 holding 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 soon as provision shall be made for increasing the minimum salary [portion congrue of the par- ish 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 pay- ment of taxes are abolished forever. Taxes shall be col- lected from all the citizens, and from all property, in the same manner and in the same form. Plans shall be consid- ered by which the taxes shall be paid 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 intimate union of all parts of the realm, it is decreed that all the peculiar privi- leges, pecuniary or otherwise, of the provinces, principali- ties, 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 any office or dignity, whether ecclesiastical, civil, or mili- tary ; and no profession shall imply any derogation. XII. Hereafter no remittances shall be made for annates or for any other purpose to the court of Rome, the vice legation at Avignon, or to the nunciature at Lucerne. The Sale of offices discontinued Exemptions from taxa- tion abol- ished. All local differences in the law abolished. Papal powers reduced.
