August 21, M. de Boislander proposed a plan of seventy-four articles. August 22, after divers proposals had been made and discussed, articles seven, eight, and nine were adopted.[15] August 23, after many proposals and lengthy debate, article ten was agreed upon. August 24, a liberal discussion of the phraseology resulted in the adoption of articles eleven, twelve, and thirteen.[16] August 26, after some discussion, articles fourteen and fifteen were accepted; later in the same day, articles sixteen and seventeen were agreed upon.[17] Then the Assembly resolved that the consideration of further articles should be postponed until the Constitution should be completed.[18] October 2, the articles previously adopted were presented to the Assembly, with article four changed from “La liberté consiste à faire tout ce qui ne nuit pas à autrui,” to “La liberté consiste à pouvoir faire tout” etc. The change was accepted. The whole Constitution was presented to the king September 13, 1791, and accepted by him. In the Assembly, September 14, the king swore to obey the constitution.[19] These are the facts of historical data relating to the formation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man purposely set forth in detail and in chronological order. What conclusions may we draw from them? The frequent reference to the American Bill of Rights, the number of Declarations proposed in _cahiers_ and before the Assembly, differing in form and in length, but agreeing in fundamental principles, the discussions, the selections and the modifications to which this raw material was subjected in the process of constructing the Declaration finally adopted, warrant these two inferences: (1) the notion of a Declaration of Rights, separate from the Constitution proper, was suggested to the French by the American State Constitutions; (2) the contents of the articles and the language in which they were couched were original. A study of the separate articles of the Declaration in the light of contemporary conditions gives additional reason for thinking that the ideas therein contained were not foreign to France. For convenience of consideration in the present study, the articles of the Declaration may be divided into two classes: the first class consists of those articles that were in the main reactive against certain abuses under which the French suffered; the second class comprises those articles which contained principles more especially theoretical. Less proof, perhaps, is necessary for deciding upon the originality of the former class than upon that of the latter. We shall treat these classes in the order named. “Art. 7. No person shall be accused, arrested or imprisoned except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. Any one soliciting, transmitting, executing, or causing to be executed any arbitrary order shall be punished. But any citizen summoned or arrested in virtue of the law shall submit without delay, as resistance constitutes an offense.