All existing feoffments, entails, and substitutions, if the property did not amount by itself, or with other possessions held by the same owner, to the annual rent of 5000 _pesos fuertes_, were abolished, and the owners were to hold it as free property. If it exceeded that value, the owner, at his choice, might ask the King’s permission to make it free. If it exceeded the yearly value of 20,000 _pesos fuertes_, all above that sum should be free. In the course of one year the King would establish regulations upon this subject; and for the future no property might thus be tied up, except by virtue of the King’s permission, granted in consideration of services rendered to the state, and for the purpose of perpetuating in their rank the families who should thus have deserved; but the property thus to be bound should in no case exceed the annual value of 20,000 _pesos fuertes_, nor fall short of 5000. ♦ABOLITION OF PRIVILEGES.♦ The different degrees and classes of nobility were to be preserved with their respective distinctions; but all exemptions hitherto attached to it, from public burthens and duties, were abolished, and nobility was not to be required as a qualification for civil or ecclesiastical employment, nor for military rank either by sea or land. Services and talents were to be the only means of promotion. But no person might obtain public employment in the state or church, unless he had been born in Spain, or naturalized there. The endowments belonging to the different orders of knighthood were only to be bestowed according to their original destination, in recompense of public services; and no individual should hold more than one commandery. ♦TIME FOR INTRODUCING THE CONSTITUTION, AND FOR AMENDING IT.♦ The constitution was successively and gradually to be brought into use by decrees or edicts of the King, so that the whole should be in execution before the first of January, 1813. The particular charters of the provinces of Navarre, Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and Alava, were to be examined in the first Cortes, that what should be deemed most convenient to the interest of those provinces and of the nation might be determined upon. Two years after the constitution should have been entirely carried into effect, the liberty of the press was to be established, and organized by a law made in the Cortes. All additions, modifications, and improvements, which it might be deemed expedient to make in this constitution, were to be presented by order of the King, for examination and discussion, to the first Cortes which should be held after the year 1820. And a copy of the constitution, signed by the Secretary of State, was forthwith to be communicated to the Royal Council and to the other councils and tribunals, in order that it might be published and circulated according to accustomed form. ♦THE NOBLES AND REGULARS CONTEND FOR THEIR RESPECTIVE ORDERS.♦