as postal and telegraphic services,
trade-marks, patents, copyright, quarantine, &c. Thus the Latin Monetary
Union was created in 1865 by the Convention of Paris, and the abolition
of bounties on the production and exportation of sugar by the Convention
of Brussels in 1902 (see TREATIES).

CONVENTION, THE NATIONAL, in France, the constitutional and legislative
assembly which sat from the 20th of September 1792 to the 26th of
October 1795 (the 4th of Brumaire of the year IV.). On the 10th of
August 1792, when the populace of Paris stormed the Tuileries and
demanded the abolition of the monarchy, the Legislative Assembly decreed
the provisional suspension of the king and the convocation of a national
convention which should draw up a constitution. At the same time it was
decided that the deputies to that convention should be elected by all
Frenchmen 25 years old, domiciled for a year and living by the product
of their labour. The National Convention was therefore the first French
assembly elected by universal suffrage, without distinctions of class.
The age limit of the electors was further lowered to 21, and that of
eligibility was fixed at 25 years.

The first session was held on the 20th of September 1792. The next day
royalty was abolished, and on the 22nd it was decided that all documents
should be henceforth dated from the year I. of the French Republic. The
Convention was destined to last for three years. The country was at war,
and it seemed best to postpone the new constitution until peace should
be concluded. At the same time as the Convention prolonged its powers it
extended them considerably in order to meet the pressing dangers which
menaced the Republic. Though a legislative assembly, it took over the
executive power, entrusting it to its own members. This "confusion of
powers," which was contrary to the philosophical theories--those of
Montesquieu especially--which had inspired the Revolution at first, was
one of the essential characteristics of the Convention. The series of
exceptional measures by which that confusion of powers was created
constitutes the "Revolutionary government" in the strict sense of the
word, a government which was principally in vigour during the period
called "the Terror." It is thus necessary to distinguish, in the work of
the Convention, the temporary expedients from measures intended to be
permanent.

The Convention held its first session in a hall of the Tuileries, then