APPENDIX A

NAPOLEONIC DECREE OF 1811.

IMPERIAL DECREE CONCERNING FOUNDLINGS, ABAN-
DONED CHILDREN, AND POOR ORPHANS
OF JANUARY 19, 1811.

IST TITLE.

ARTICLE I. The children whose education is entrusted to public charity are:

Ist. Foundlings.

2.

Foundlings are those born of unknown parents, who have been found exposed in any place, or those taken to the hospitals intended to receive them.

3. In each hospital intended to receive foundlings there shall be a place where they may be left.

4. There will be at most in each district (arrondissement) an institution where the foundlings may be received. Registers shall state day by day, their arrival, their sex, their apparent age, and shall describe the natural marks and the swaddling clothes which may serve for their identification.

3D TITLE.

Of Abandoned Children and Poor Orphans

5. Abandoned children are those born of known parents and at first raised by them, or by other persons for them, and are abandoned by them, the whereabouts of the parents being unknown or there being no means of discovering them.

6. Orphans are those who, not having either father or mother, have no means of subsistence.

4TH TITLE.

Of the Education of Foundlings, Abandoned Children, and Orphans.

7. Newly born foundlings will be placed with a wet nurse as soon as possible; up to that they will be nourished by the bottle or even by means of wet nurses resident in the establishment. If they are weaned or susceptible of being weaned, they will either be put to nurse or weaned.

8. These children will receive a layette. They will remain to the age of six years.

9. At six years, all the children will be, or as many as can, put to board with farmers. The price of the board will increase each year up to the age of twelve, at which period the infant males in a state to serve will be placed at the disposition of the Minister of the Marine.

IO. The infants who cannot be put to board, the crippled and the infirm, will be raised in the hospitals. They will be occupied in the workshops at those employments that are not below their age.

On the Expenses of Foundlings, Abandoned Children, and Orphans.

II. Hospitals designated to receive foundlings are directed to furnish the layettes and all the inside expenses pertaining to the nourishment and education of the children.

12. We herewith set aside the sum of 4,000,000 francs annually to contribute to the monthly payment of wet nurses and the boarding of the foundlings and abandoned children.

If it should turn out after the division of this sum that it is inadequate, the difference will be provided by the hospitals from their revenues or by drawing on the funds of the community.

13. The monthly payments of the nurses and their board shall not be made except on the certificate of the mayors of the communities where the children are. The mayors must attest each month that they have seen the children.

14. The administrative commissioners of the hospitals will visit at least twice in the year each infant, either a special commission, or by physicians or surgeons, vaccinators or others.

6TH TITLE.

Of the Guardianship and of Foundling Children and Abandoned Children

15. Foundling and abandoned children are under the guardianship of the hospital, in conformance with existing regulations. A member of this commission is especially charged with this guardianship.

16. The aforesaid children, brought up at the cost of the State, are entirely at its disposition, and when the Minister of Marine so decides, the guardianship of the Commission ceases.

17. When the infants have reached the age of twelve years, those whom the State has made no disposition of will, as soon as it is possible to do so, be apprenticed out, the boys with the workmen, the girls with housewives, seamstresses, and other workwomen in the factories or manufacturing establishments.

18. The contracts of apprenticeship shall not stipulate in favour of either the master or the apprentice, but they will guarantee the master the free services of the apprentice up to an age which shall not exceed the twenty-fifth year, and the apprentice food, shelter and clothing.

19. At the call of the army, or a conscription, the obligations of the apprentice will cease.

20.

Those of the infants who cannot be put out as apprentices, the crippled and the infirm, who cannot find places outside of the hospitals will remain there as a charge to each hospital.

Workshops will be established in order to provide them with employment.

7TH TITLE.

On the Recognition and Announcement (Reclamation) of Foundlings and Abandoned Children.

21. No charge is made in the rules relative to the recognition and advertising of foundling and abandoned children, but before exercising any right, the

parents must, if they have the means, reimburse the authorities for all expenses made either by the State or by the hospitals, and in no case, can an infant of which the State has made disposition, be released until those obligations are met.

8TH TITLE.

General "Dispositions"

22. The Minister of the Interior will propose to us before January 1, 1812, the rules of administration, which will be discussed in our Council of State. These rules will determine, for each department, the number of hospitals where foundlings will be received and all that relates to their administration concerning principally the disposition of the infants now in charge and the payment for nurses and boarding.

23. Individuals who are convicted of having exposed children and those who make it a practice of transporting them to hospitals will be punished in accordance with the law.

24. Our Minister of Marine will present to us a plan dealing with: Ist. An organization relative to those clauses in which his powers are defined in this decree. 2d. For the regulation of the employment without delay of those who, on the 1st of January, will become twelve years of age.

25. Our Minister of the Interior is directed to see to the execution of the present decree and will have it inserted in the bulletin of laws.