§ II. On the Goods of Private Persons

752. Things to be noted. - I. Some goods of private persons unjustly proscribed, des émigrés, were occupied by the Republic, others by private persons, as was just said concerning ecclesiastical goods.

II. Louis XVIII, in the year 1814, promulgated a public Constitution for confirming possessions of this kind. - Charles X, by a law passed on April 27, 1825, declared all national properties inviolable, and established that indemnity must be paid to injured private persons. Thirty millions, at a capital of one billion, are assigned to indemnity by the State for Frenchmen whose landed properties situated in France, or which formed part of the territory of France on January 1, 1792, were confiscated or alienated in execution of the laws concerning the émigrés, the deported, and those condemned by the Revolution.

753. Resolves. - 1. Private persons who by their own authority occupied these goods are still held to restitution, and never will be able to prescribe, since they were possessors of bad faith.

2. The acquirers of national goods were held to restitution until the time of the Restoration; for no legitimate transfer of dominion had been made.

3. The same acquirers from the year 1814, and especially from the day of April 27, on which the law of indemnity was sanctioned, are no longer held to restitution, provided the acquisition was legal or made by authority of the Government.

4. It is not certain that movable goods are comprehended under the benefit of ratification; for the law of the year 1814 has no word concerning them, and the law of the year 1825 speaks only of immovables. Nevertheless very many think that concerning movable goods which are joined to estates or houses the same must be thought as concerning immovables; because the accessory follows the principal.

End of the Treatise on Justice and Right.