CODES. 



295 



t:on of the parliament of Paris. Some of these par- 

 ticular systems of law had been reduced to writing in 

 very early times ; for instance, the Etablissements de 

 St Louis, which were in force in the royal baronies, 

 and were revised by Louis IX., and the conseils of 

 Peter Desfontaines, of the 13th century. Besides 

 the general privileges of the cities, particular 

 municipal laws were 'sometimes granted. See ex- 

 amples in the great collection of royal ordinances, 

 begun by Lauriere, 1723. Most of these particular 

 laws, however, were preserved only in the memory 

 of the inhabitants and of the judges, and were, con- 

 sequently, very uncertain in their application. There- 

 fore, after Charles VII. had driven the English from 

 the French territory, it was decreed in the assembly 

 of the states, 1453, that all customary laws should be 

 reduced to writing. The inhabitants were first ques- 

 tioned as to the law in use (by tens, or per turbani) 

 until it was believed that sufficient certainty was ob- 

 tained : the laws were then arranged by men learned 

 in the law, examined in the council of state, and con- 

 firmed by the king. This operation continued almost 

 a hundred years, and produced several hundreds of 

 such particular systems, the most complete collection 

 of which, containing more than 400, was made by 

 Bourdot de Richebourg (Coutumier general, Paris, 

 1724, 8 vols., folio). Besides this mass of particular 

 laws, some general laws were passed. The first and 

 second dynasty promulgated capitularia, with the 

 consent of the nation. But the third dynasty, as we 

 have already observed, was not only obliged, in the 

 time of feudal anarchy, to grant complete independ- 

 ence and sovereignty to the great vassals and lords 

 of the kingdom (pays hors I'obeissance du roy), but 

 even the inferior barons, the king's particular vassals, 

 who had been enfeoffed by him out of his own do- 

 mains, made themselves almost entirely independent. 

 The legislative power of the king could, therefore, 

 at first, he exercised only by granting privileges to 

 the cities, by which the power of the barons was li- 

 mited, to the advantage not only of the citizens, but 

 also of the crown. From the time of Philip Augustus 

 (1180 1223), it became an established principle, that 

 the king could unite vacant fiefs of the kingdom with 

 his hereditary domains, as crown lands ; and one of 

 the first acquisitions of this kind was the duchy of 

 Normandy. The great power which thus accrued to 

 the king was so much strengthened by the address 

 and personal authority of Louis IX. (1226 1270), 

 that he was enabled to make general laws, partly 

 with, partly without, the consent of the barons. 

 These were called ordonnances. They were in force, 

 however, only in die hereditary domains of the king : 

 the great barons exercised an equal legislative power 

 in their own territories. After almost all these fiefs 

 had been united with the crown, excepting some small 

 sovereignties, as the principalities of Dombes, 

 Orange, Bouillon, the counties of Avignon and Ven- 

 aissin ; and after the marriage of king Charles VIII. 

 with the daughter and heiress of Bretagne, the au- 

 thority of the ordonnances extended over the whole 

 kingdom. At the same time, the royal power ap- 

 proached that absoluteness, which was prepared 

 under Richelieu by the entire subjection of the 

 nobles, completed under Louis XIV., and the abuse 

 of which under Louis XV., produced the revolution. 

 Among the ordonnancet of this period, are distin- 

 guished those on jurisdiction and the order of proce- 

 dure, in which France was then in advance of the 

 rest of Europe. The more ancient refer to local 

 subjects, and the connexions of the church with the 

 state. To the former belong the ordonnances of 1446 

 and 14-53, and that of Villers Cotterets (1539), which 

 was almost contemporaneous with the law of crimi- 

 nal procedure of Charles V., in Germany, and intro- 



duced the written trial instead of the usual irregular 

 and tumultous process, which was different in every 

 seigneurie. Its author was the chancellor Guillaume 

 Poyet, from whom it was also called Guidelmine 

 We might also mention the ordonnance of Orleans, 

 (1560), the ordonnance of Blois (1579), and others. 

 None of these ordonnances, nor any collection of 

 them, bore the name of code. The earlier incomplete 

 collections of them (a systematic one was first made 

 by Fontanon, 1611, 4 vols. folio ; a chronological 

 one by Neron and Girard, 1620, 4 vols., folio) were 

 superseded by that published by the chancellor Pont- 

 chartrain, the first volume of which, edited by De 

 Lauriere, appeared in 1723. The work has been 

 continued by Secousse, Villevaults, Brequigny, Ca- 

 mus, and Pastoret, 1816, 18 vols., folio. It is to be 

 concluded with the reign of Francis I. Henry III. 

 intrusted the systematic arrangement of the ordon- 

 nances of his predecessors to the famous Brisson, 

 who published them under the name of Code Henri 

 or Basiliques, though they acquired no legal autho- 

 rity. Under Louis XIII. (1629), an express ordon- 

 nance respecting the judicial procedure, and other 

 subjects, which had furnished matter of complaint to 

 the states, was sketched, in 461 articles, by the chan- 

 cellor Michael de Marillac, but was not acknowledg- 

 ed by the courts, as it was not registered. It was 

 called Code Marillac or Code Michau ; and, in later 

 times the name code has been applied to several pri- 

 vate collections of the ordonnances of a certain pe- 

 riod (for instance, Code Louis XF"., by Chausse- 

 pierre, containing the ordonnances from 1722 to 

 1740, 12 vols., 12mo ; or relating to single objects, 

 Code noir ; Code des Cures, Paris, 1780, 4 vols., 

 12mo. ; Code penal, by 1'Averdy, 1777, 12mo, &c.), 

 but never as a legal designation. The government 

 of Louis XIV. was distinguished for its legislative 

 activity. Comprehensive ordonnances, or rather real 

 codes of law, appeared on the civil process (1667), 

 on the criminal process (1670), on commercial law 

 (1673), on the forest law (1669), on the marine (1681), 

 and on ecclesiastical jurisdiction (1695). The most 

 important ordonnances of Louis XV. relate to dona- 

 tions (1731), wills (1735), and substitutions (1747). 

 In this state of things, the great diversity in the ex- 

 isting laws was as burdensome as it was revolting to 

 reason. It would betray but a superficial acquaint- 

 ance with history, to suppose that such a diversity of 

 laws could exist without great disadvantages. It re- 

 tards the development of the science of law, as it re- 

 quires the study of many accidental details, rather 

 than of the general principles of universal right, by 

 which the Roman law has attained its high perfec- 

 tion. It is also a very injurious check to dvil inter- 

 course, and a source of insecurity and loss to those 

 who enter into any legal connexions with the inha- 

 bitants of other provinces. Nothing contributes more 

 to promote the internal intercourse of a nation, the 

 foundation of its greatness, tlian uniformity of laws. 

 Hence the reduction of those 400 particular systems 

 of customs into one civil code, was one of the things 

 most desired by the French nation ; and Napoleon, 

 after having restored peace, and settled the subject 

 of ecclesiastical relations, could think of nothing which 

 would contribute more to promote his popularity and 

 the good of France, than the execution of this project, 

 which had been attempted in vain during the revolu- 

 tion. The emperor himself remarked at St Helena, 

 that he considered the code which bears his name to 

 be the best monument which he had erected for him- 

 self. The abolition of so many systems of law, of 

 the feudal privileges, of the family trusts, of the indi- 

 visibility of the fiets, made the preparation of a gene- 

 ral civil code possible, and even necessary, which 

 was acknowledged as early as in the first constitution 



