17 September, 1793
1. Immediately after the publication of the present decree, all suspected persons within the territory of the Republic and still at liberty shall be placed in custody.
2. The following are deemed suspected persons: 1st, those who, by their conduct, associations, talk, or writings have shown themselves partisans of tyranny or federalism and enemies of liberty; 2nd, those who are unable to justify, in the manner prescribed by the decree of 21 March last, their means of existence and the performance of their civic duties; 3rd, those to whom certificates of patriotism have been refused; 4th, public functionaries suspended or dismissed from their positions by the National Convention or by its commissioners, and not reinstated, especially those who have been or are to be dismissed by virtue of decree of 14 August last; 5th, those former nobles, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons or daughters, brothers or sisters, and agents of the émigrés, who have not steadily manifested their devotion to the Revolution; 6th, those who have emigrated during the interval between 1 July, 1789, and the publication of the decree of 30 March – 8 April, 1792, even though they may have returned to France within the period established by said decree or prior thereto.
3. The Watch Committees established according to the decree of 21 March last, or those substituted therefore either by orders of the representatives of the people dispatched to the armies and the departments, or by virtue of particular decrees of the National Convention, are charged with drafting, each in its own arrondissement, a list of suspected persons, with issuing warrants of arrest against them, and with having seals to put them into effect immediately, under penalty of dismissal. placed on their papers. Commanders of the public force to whom such warrants are remitted shall be required
4. The members of the committee may order the arrest of any individual only if seven are present, and only by absolute majority of votes.
5. Individuals arrested as suspects shall be taken first to the jails of the place of their detention; on default of jails, they shall be kept under surveillance in their respective dwellings.
6. Within the following week, they shall be transferred to national buildings, which the departmental administrations shall be required to designate and to have prepared for such purpose immediately after the receipt of the present decree.
7. The prisoners may have their absolutely essential belongings brought into said buildings; they shall remain there under guard until the peace.
8. The expenses of custody shall be charged to the prisoners, and shall be divided among them equally: such custody shall be confided preferably to fathers of families and to the relatives of citizens who are at or may go to the frontiers. The salary therefore is established for each man of the guard, at the value of one and one-half days of labor.
9. The Watch Committees shall dispatch to the Committee of General Security of the National Convention, without delay, the list of persons whom they have arrested, with the reasons for their arrest and with the papers they have seized in such connection.
10. If there is occasion, the civil and criminal courts may have detained, in custody, and dispatched to the jails above stated, those who are accused of offenses with regard to which it has been declared that there was no occasion for the indictment or who have been acquitted of charges brought against them.