<P> Article VI--The law is the expression of the general will . All the citizens have the right of contributing personally or through their representatives to its formation . It must be the same for all, either that it protects, or that it punishes . All the citizens, being equal in its eyes, are equally admissible to all public dignities, places, and employments, according to their capacity and without distinction other than that of their virtues and of their talents . </P> <P> Article VII--No man can be accused, arrested nor detained but in the cases determined by the law, and according to the forms which it has prescribed . Those who solicit, dispatch, carry out or cause to be carried out arbitrary orders, must be punished; but any citizen called or seized under the terms of the law must obey at once; he renders himself culpable by resistance . </P> <P> Article VIII--The law should establish only penalties that are strictly and evidently necessary, and no one can be punished but under a law established and promulgated before the offense and legally applied . </P> <P> Article IX--Any man being presumed innocent until he is declared culpable if it is judged indispensable to arrest him, any rigor which would not be necessary for the securing of his person must be severely reprimanded by the law . </P>

French declaration of the rights of man and citizen pdf