A PENAL CODE OF THEIR OWN 3 



the legal recognition of forests as a resource standing apart from other 

 resources in its need for extraordinary care and protection. In this 

 principle of French law are reflected the timber and fuel-wood famines, 

 actual or threatened, through which France has passed, and the prolonged 

 struggles which she has waged to check sand dunes on the Gascon Coast 

 and torrential erosion in the Alps. Because of the long period of time 

 required to restore forests once destroyed or impaired and because of the 

 far-reaching public interests which they serve, forest property is given a 

 special status in French jurisprudence both as regards the police powers 

 and duties of the State and as regards the rights of private ownership. 

 Under the French theory, a shortage of cereals or other farm crops can be 

 made good in a year or two, but public injury from the destruction of 

 forests may be irreparable for a generation. Hence, the State must in- 

 tervene with special measures for the protection of forests which are 

 applicable to no other forms of property. 



A Penal Code of Their Own. Probably the most striking application 

 of this principle is found in the protective features of the National Forest 

 Code. The common law alone is regarded as inadequate for the protec- 

 tion of forests in France, which are placed under what is practically a 

 separate penal code of their own. This code applies particularly to the 

 forests under public administration but certain features of it are extended 

 to private forests. Furthermore, the private forest owner may place his 

 property under public administration and thereby obtain the full pro- 

 tective benefits of the forest code. Many penal provisions of the code 

 were taken bodily from ordinances of Louis XIV. After the revolution- 

 ary upheaval had subsided, republican France extended to her forests 

 many of the severe and restrictive forms of protection which they were 

 accorded under the "ancien regime." There is nothing comparable in 

 French jurisprudence concerning other classes of property. 



In the maze of detailed prohibitions and penalties in the penal section 

 of the forest code, one gains a deal of light upon French conceptions of 

 forest conservation. A fixed schedule of fines and imprisonments is 

 applicable for trespass and other violations of the code solely upon veri- 

 fication of the fact that an offense was committed. Considerations of 

 good faith or mitigating circumstances are excluded. Aside from penal- 

 ties to the State and civil damages to the owner of the forest for tangible 

 losses which have been sustained, the code authorizes further damages for 

 intangible injuries such as the disruption of a plan of management. These 

 are adjudged as not less than the penal fine. Thus the trespasser who 

 cuts green timber, however innocently, pays a fine the commercial value 

 of the stumpage cut and an additional sum representing the value of the 

 trees to the owner for further growth or seed production. If trees are 

 cut which were planted or sown by hand and do not exceed five years in 



