[4] _Les Associations Professionelles_, vol. i, p. 8.
[5] H. Lagardelle, _L'Évolution des Syndicats Ouvriers en France_ (Paris, 1901), p. 13.
The report by which the bill was introduced brought out very clearly the individualistic ideas by which the legislators of the Revolution were inspired. "Citizens of certain trades," read this report, "must not be permitted to assemble for their pretended common interests. There is no longer any corporation (guild) in the State; there is but the particular interest of each individual and the general interest...." And further, "It is necessary to abide by the principle that only by free contracts, between individual and individual, may the workday for each workingman be fixed; it is then for the workingman to maintain the agreement which he had made with his employer."[6]
[6] _Les Associations Professionelles_, vol. i, pp. 11-12.
The law identified the new combinations with the ancient guilds. Its first clause declared that "whereas the abolition of all kinds of corporations of citizens of the same estate (_état_) and of the same trade is one of the fundamental bases of the French Constitution, it is prohibited to re-establish them _de facto_ under any pretext or form whatsoever". The second clause formulated the prohibition to form trade organizations in terms which left nothing to be desired in clearness and precision. It read: "The citizens of the same estate or trade, entrepreneurs, those who run a shop, workingmen in any trade whatsoever, shall not, when assembled together, nominate presidents, nor secretaries, nor syndics, shall not keep any records, shall not deliberate nor pass resolutions nor form any regulations with reference to their pretended common interests." The fourth clause declared all acts contrary to this law unconstitutional, subject to the jurisdiction of the police tribunals, punishable by a fine of 500 _livres_ and by a temporary suspension of active rights of citizenship. The sixth and seventh clauses determined higher penalties in cases of menace and of violence. The eighth clause prohibited all "gatherings composed of artisans, of workingmen, of journeymen or of laborers, or instigated by them and directed against the free exercise of industry and work to which all sorts of persons have a right under all sorts of conditions agreed upon by private contract (_de gré a gré_)". "Such gatherings are declared riotous, are to be dispersed by force, and are to be punished with all the severity which the law permits."[7]