(2) CODIFICATION IN FRANCE AND ON THE CONTINENT OF EUROPE, AND IN EGYPT.

In the account which has already been given of the history of Roman law in France, it has been seen that the Roman law at all times profoundly influenced the French law in all the provinces, even those subjected to what was called "customary law," and that the systematization of the law was a favourite project of the French kings. The works of Pothier (born in 1699), which consisted of a rearranged and annotated edition of the Digest and of logically distributed treatises on the chief topics of civil and commercial law from a Roman law standpoint, tended to prepare the way for a true code of French law on a Roman-law basis. The atrocious severity of the criminal law, and the administrative inconvenience of a multiplicity of systems, also tended in the same direction of enforcing the necessity of comprehensive legal reform. The promotion of such a reform was among the first aspirations of the revolutionary leaders, as appears from the following decrees of the National Assembly, dated 25th and 30th August, 1791.

"The civil laws shall be revised and reformed by the Legislature; and there shall be made a general code of laws, simple, clear, appropriate to the constitution. The code of civil procedure shall be constantly amended, so that it be made more simple, expeditious, and inexpensive. The penal code shall be constantly amended, so that penalties shall be proportioned to offences; care being taken that they be moderate, and that maxim being kept in view which forms part of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, that the law can only institute punishments strictly and obviously necessary.'”

The Convention (1792-1795) prepared, with the help of Cambacères, a projet of a Code, and another projet was prepared in 1795, with the help of Jacqueminot by the Council of Five Hundred.

To Napoleon belongs the credit, not, as is often supposed, of originating the idea of a comprehensive French

Code, but that of actually decreeing that the work should be done.

To understand how the task was originally set about, under the consular government of Napoleon, it must be remembered that the original constitution of the Consulate, which succeeded that of the Directory, comprised the following elements, legislative and executive :

Three Consuls, one pre-eminent over the other two. A Council of State, charged with the task of suggesting and preparing legislative measures.

A "Tribunate" (of one hundred members over twentyfive years of age, and one-fifth of whom were renewed every year), whose task was to discuss among themselves measures of government and argue them in the Legislative Body.

The Legislative Body, which only listened and voted.
The Conservative Senate.

The Civil Code was the first portion of the work to be done, and it was, as it were, built up out of a series of measures or projets, each of which was separately discussed and passed, after being submitted to the Court of Cassation. and to the different courts of appeal throughout the country, and after their comments and criticisms had been considered. The chief discussions of the letter of the code took place in the Council of State, and in the presence of the Legislative Body, through the arguments and counterarguments of the Tribunate and the professional supporters of the measure as approved in the Council of State. The report of these discussions is preserved, and is, of course, of the highest interest. After a time the Tribunate was suppressed, apparently from the obstacles to the complete carrying out of his own will which Napoleon encountered from it.

Napoleon himself always took the most active part and interest in the process of codification, sometimes indeed from selfish concern, as in the case of the law of marriage and divorce, which affected himself. He often manifested the keenest interest in the progress of the work, even in the midst of a distant campaign.

As a specimen of the difficulty which was encountered in reconciling the rules prevalent in Roman-law provinces with those prevalent in "customary law" provinces, the case of marriage may be selected in which the dotal régime and the system of community of goods came into direct competition. They were both allowed to stand, if the parties chose, but in default of expressed intention the system of community was held to be presumed.

The general distribution of the civil code follows that of Justinian's Institutes and Pothier's treatises to an almost servile extent. Inasmuch as the code not only obtained a lasting footing in many of the European dominions, especially the Rhine provinces, which formed part of Napoleon's Empire, and has since been the constant model on which most European codes have been constructed, it is obvious that it has become one of the chief avenues for handing down Roman law to a new age.

One of the latest extensions of Roman law through the medium of the type supplied by the French codes, is the system of codes which came into force in the mixed international tribunals of Egypt, in 1876. These are, in fact, curt abbreviations of the Code Civil and the Code de Commerce, the Roman law arrangement, method, and terminology being, of course, prevalent throughout. The new codes for the remodelled Native Tribunals are being framed after the same type, and the result will be a fresh meeting point of the Roman law of the West with the Roman law element in the Mohammedan law of the East.

(3) CODIFICATION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

One of the most notable adaptations of Roman law to the uses of a progressive modern State is exhibited in the Code of Louisiana. The present civil code of Louisiana is probably the most complete code in existence, originally composed in the English language, and based on the principles and terminology of the Roman law. Louisiana was ceded by France to Spain by the treaty of 1762. Even when the territory was ceded to the United States Govern

ment, French law (based on the Coutumes de Paris) and Spanish law prevailed in suits between individual persons.

In 1806, the Legislative Council of the territory of Orleans appointed two able lawyers to compile and prepare a civil code for the use of the territory. The result of their labours, purporting to be a "digest of the civil laws now in force in the territory of Orleans, with alterations and amendments adapted to the present system of government," was reported and adopted in 1808. The code was, in fact, a republication of so much as was not obsolete in the Spanish and French law, and generally followed the Justinian system, arrangement, and terminology, as well as the leading principles applicable to all the leading departments of the law.

A new and reformed code, which is, in fact, the one now in force, was published in 1824. It had the advantage of the experience derived from the precedent and operation of the French codes. It was entrusted to Mr. Derbigny, Mr. Livingston, and Mr. Moreau Lislet, and is, in many respects, a work of the highest interest.

The "repealing clause" is an index to the character and object of this code. It is as follows:-" From and after the promulgation of this code, the Spanish, Roman, and French laws which were in force when Louisiana was ceded to the United States, and the acts of the Legislative Council of the Legislature of the territory of Orleans, and of the Legislature of the State of Louisiana, be and are hereby repealed in every case for which it has been specially provided in this code, and they shall not be invoked as laws, even under the pretext that these provisions are not contrary or repugnant to that code."