Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/151

115 NAPOLEON AND HIS CODE 115 tary science. His diplomacy brought little to France that remains. His statesmanship and administration benefited that country and their results continue there. But his greatest achievement, that which endures to-day, the one feature of Napoleon's career which now influences the world beyond France and which is growing in recognition as the years pass, was his work as a lawgiver and a codifier. Earlier Scheaces of Codification The legal chaos that prevailed in France before the Revolution had engaged the attention of eminent Frenchmen for centuries. A single code for the whole country was the dream of King Louis XI in the fifteenth century, of Dimioulin (1500-66) and Brisson in the sixteenth, of Colbert and Lamoignon in the seventeenth, and of D'Aguesseau in the eighteenth. The four last named made sub- stantial contributions toward such a project — Brisson, ^ by his compilation of the Ordinances in force under Henry III, Colbert and Lamoignon, through the more celebrated Ordinances ^ bearing the name of Louis XIV, and D'Aguesseau, whose Ordinances on wills, gifts, and entails appeared between 1731 and 1747, and "were thorough codifications." ^ The States-General of 1560 voted for a code, and those of 1576 and 1 6 14 again recommended one, and when, on June 17, 1789, that body became the National Assembly and seized the sovereign power, these juridical evils of the old regime were among the first to be denounced. Everyone recognized their enormity, but prac- General of the Parliament of Paris, and author of a widely used dictionary of law (' De verborumsignificatione'), compiled a systematic collection of the principal provisions contained in the Ordinances in force under Henry III. This prince, ambitious, it was said, to rival the glory of such men as Theodosius and Justinian, was about to give it royal sanction; but his death in 1589 prevented this. Brisson's work was published after his death imder the title of 'Code Henri III, Basilica.'" Brissaud, Manuel d'histoire du droit franqais, § 3, 346 et seq., translation in i Continental Legal History Series, 264. ' These included the Civil Procedure Ordinance of 1667, intended to expedite and cheapen litigation but which also limited judicial discretion; the Criminal Ordinance of 1670, really restricted to procedure and antiquated in many of its provisions though possessing "much merit"; the Ordinance of Commerce (1673), mainly the work of Jacques Savary, a Paris merchant; and the Ordinance of the Marine (1681), a careful codification of maritime law. Id., 264-65, 279.
 * "About 1580, a celebrated jurisconsult, Barnaby Brisson (Brissonius), Advocate-
 * Id., 279. Cf. 269.