Page:The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789-1907, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged.pdf/277

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Constitution of the Year III
247

can be effected only in the month of Messidor of each year.

306. Taxes of every sort are apportioned among those liable for taxes, in accordance with their means.

307. The Executive Directory directs and watches over the collection and the deposit of the taxes and gives all the orders necessary for that purpose.

308. The detailed accounts of the expenditure of the ministers, signed and certified by them, are made public at the commencement of each year.

The same thing shall be done for the lists of receipts for the different taxes and all the public revenues.

309. The accounts of these expenses and receipts are distinguished according to their nature; they show the sums received and expended year by year in each part of the general administration.

310. The accounts of the special expenses of the departments and those which relate to the tribunals, administrations, the progress of the sciences, and all public works and establishments are likewise published.

311. The department administrations and the municipalities cannot make any assessment beyond the sums fixed by the legislative body, nor, without being authorized by it, consider or allow any local loan at the expense of the citizens of the department, commune or canton.

312. The right to regulate the manufacture and issue of every sort of monies, to fix the values and weights thereof, and to determine the type thereof, belongs to the legislative body alone.

313. The Executive Directory watches over the manufacture of the monies and appoints the officers charged with the immediate conduct of this inspection.

314. The legislative body determines the taxes of the colonies and their commercial relations with the mother country.

National Treasury and Book-keeping.

315. There are five commissioners of the national treasury elected by the Council of Ancients from a triple list presented by that of the Five Hundred.

316. The duration of their functions is five years: one of them is renewed every year and can be re-elected indefinitely without interval.