CODE CODICIL. 



297 



t?ic collection of laws respecting the administration 

 of the woods, those belonging to cities, villages, &c. 

 us well as those of the king, was published Aug. 1, 

 1827, under Charles X. It is to be found, with the 

 Charte Cohstitutionnelle, the five codes, &c., in a very 

 convenient edition, the title of which runs thus : Les 

 Six Codes, avec Indication de leurs Dispositions correla- 

 tives et Rapports entre eux, augmentes de la Charte 

 Constitutionnelle, du Tarif des Frais de Justice, de la 

 Loi sur le Sacrilege; d'un Choix des autres Lois, 

 Decrets, Ordonnances, formant le Complement de la 

 Legislation civile, commerciale, et criminelle, et d'une 

 Table des Matter en ; Paris, Froment et Lequien, 1828. 

 Though this title speaks of the Six Codes, the five 

 first given are of course considered as constituting 

 one whole. 



Having given, in the preceding paragraph, the 

 general history of the Five Codes, we shall offer here 

 a brief outline of the particular history of the Code 

 Napoleon, or, as it is now called, Code civil. One 

 of the first labours of Bonaparte, when consul, was, 

 to give France a code. By a consular decree, dated 

 24th of Thermidor, year 8 (Aug. 12, 1800), a com- 

 mittee was instituted " to compare the order which 

 had been followed in the preparation of the projets 

 for a civil code hitherto published, to determine the 

 plan which the committee shall trunk best to adopt, 

 and to discuss the chief principles of civil legisla- 

 tion." Portalis, Tronchet, Bigot-Preameneu, Male- 

 ville, and the minister of justice, formed this com- 

 mittee. Portalis and Maleville were of the pays du 

 tlroit ecrit. See the preceding paragraph. In the 

 following year, 1801, these commissioners reported a 

 draft of a civil code, which was, in the first instance, 

 submitted to the court of cassation (of errors ; see 

 Cassation, Court of) and the various courts of appeal. 

 With the reports of the judges of these courts 

 the draft was submitted to the council of state, over 

 which the consul Bonaparte presided, and in which 

 every part was thoroughly discussed. In the work 

 entitled Conference du Code civil, avec la Discussion 

 particuliere du ConseU d'Etat et du Tribunat, c., 8 

 vols. 12mo, Paris, 1805, a detailed and very careful- 

 ly prepared report of these discussions is contained. 

 Each article, after having been discussed in this 

 body, was presented to the tribunate, where it under- 

 went another discussion, and was returned to the 

 council of state as adopted, rejected, or amended. 

 In this way, the five codes, already mentioned, were 

 successively produced. The Code civil was called, 

 by way of eminence, Code Napoleon. It is divided 

 into 2281 paragraphs, which are numbered, and con- 

 sist of a few lines each. The work is divided into 

 three books (livres) ; each book into a certain num- 

 ber of titles ; each title is comprised in one or more 

 chapters. A preliminary title, " On the Publica- 

 tion, Effects, and Application of the Law in General," 

 precedes the whole. The first book is entitled " Of 

 Persons," and, in eleven titles, treats, 1. of the en- 

 joyment and privation of civil rights ; 2. of civil 

 acts, such as the registry of births, marriages, and 

 deaths ; 3. of domicil ; 4. of absentees ; 5. of mar- 

 riages ; 6. of divorce ; 7. of the relations of father 

 and son ; 8. of adoption and officious guardianship ; 

 9. of the paternal power ; 10. of minority, guardian- 

 ship and emancipation ; 11. of majority, of guardian- 

 ship of persons of age (interdiction) and judicial coun- 

 sel. The second book is entitled " Of Property and 

 the different Modifications of Ownership," and in four 

 titles, treats, 1. of the distinction of property into real 

 and personal (immeubles et mcubles); 2. of owner- 

 ship ; 3. of usufruct, of use and habitation ; 4. of 

 servitudes (easements; des servitudes ou services 

 fonciers). The third book is entitled " Of the 

 different Modes of acquiring Property," and, in 



twenty titles, treats, 1. of successions ; 2. of dona- 

 tions inter vivos and testaments ; 3. of contracts, or 

 conventional obligations in general ; 4. of engage- 

 ments formed without a convention ; 5. of the con- 

 tract of marriage, and the rights of the parties re- 

 spectively ; 6. of sale ; 7. of exchange ; 8. of the 

 contract of letting to hire ; 9. of partnership ; 10. 

 of loan; 11. of deposit and sequestration; 12. of 

 contracts connected with chance (aleatoires, such 

 as wagers and life-rents) ; 13. of powers of attorney ; 

 14. of becoming security; 15. of transactions ; 16. 

 of bodily duress in civil cases; 17. of furnishing se- 

 curity; 18. of mortgages ; 19. of taking and setting 

 off by execution; 20. of prescriptions. It would 

 be necessary to give the heads of the chapters also, 

 in order to present a clear view of the code, but our 

 limits do not permit it. The work already quoted, 

 Conference du Code civil, is indispensable to a com- 

 plete understanding of the code, because it gives the 

 history of each law. It first presents each article in 

 the code, as finally adopted. Next follow the dif- 

 ferent forms and draughts of each article discussed 

 in the council of state, with the report of the discus- 

 sions. To this succeed the observations made in the 

 section of legislation of the tribunate. We learn, 

 from this work, how active a part Napoleon took hi 

 the formation of the code, as his remarks are given 

 as well those of the others, and he was present dur- 

 ing almost the whole of the debates. By the con- 

 quests of the French, the Code Napoleon was intro- 

 duced into Holland, the kingdom of Westphalia, the 

 kingdom of Italy, of Naples and Spam, and the duke- 

 dom of Berg. It had much influence, moreover, on 

 the administration of justice in several smaller coun- 

 tries, as Baden ; but it has nowhere, out of France, 

 retained the authority of law, since the overthrow of 

 Napoleon, except in the Prussian dominions on the 

 left bank of the Rhine, and in some parts of the king- 

 dom of the Netherlands : in the former, however, 

 the government intends to introduce the Prussian 

 code. In America it has served as a model to the 

 Code of Louisiana and the Code Henri. See Louisiana, 

 Code of, and Christophe. 



CODEX ; with the ancients, that part of the wood 

 of a tree next to the bark. Before the invention of 

 paper, wooden tablets, covered with wax, which 

 were written on with the style, and put together in 

 the shape of a book, were called codex. The word 

 was afterwards retained, in times when paper was 

 used for writing, to denote a large book. Thus, im- 

 portant works, particularly old manuscripts of poets, 

 tiistorians, &c., which had been preserved, were 

 called codices manuscripti. (See Manuscripts.) In 

 like manner, a collection of laws was called codex, 

 with the addition of the name of the sovereign under 

 whom it had been compiled, as Codex Carolinus, Code 

 Napoleon. 



Codex rescriptus (Latin ; a re-written codex). 

 This name is given to ancient manuscripts, which, in 

 :he middle ages, were used, after the original writing 

 had been in a great measure effaced, for the copying 

 of other works, generally ecclesiastical treatises. 

 Thus the Institutions of Gains, recently discovered by 

 Niebuhr, at Verona, are a codex rescriptus. Some 

 skill is required to read the ancient letters under 

 the others. The Greek name for codex rescriptus is 

 oalimpsest (q. v.), now more frequently used. The 

 Holy Scriptures themselves have been sometimes 

 effaced, to make way for homilies and legends. One 

 of the oldest manuscripts of the Bible, described by 

 Wetstein, in his preface to his New Testament, as 

 number C, is a codex rescriptus. 



CODEX ALEXANDRINUS. See Alexandrian 

 lopy. 



CODICIL, in law; a supplement to a will, to 



