144 LAW 



and procedural legislation under Louis XIV, prepared 

 the way for the grand results of the Napoleonic codifi- 

 cation; and the political philosophies of MONTESQUIEU 

 and ROUSSEAU initiated a world-influence which has not 

 yet ceased. 



The promulgation of the Napoleonic Codes (Civil, 

 Penal, Commercial, Criminal, Procedural) between 1804 

 and 1 8 10, was the greatest legal fact of the first half 

 of the nineteenth century. These Codes represented 

 the legal side of the vast social and political revolution 

 of ideas in the Western world; and they belted the globe 

 with their influence. Not only many European countries, 

 but almost all the Latin-American States, used the 

 Codes in framing their own legislation. In the stimulus 

 given by them indirectly in many departments of law, 

 the Napoleonic Codes continued to be dominant legal 

 factors until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. 

 The method of textual commentary, based on the fixed 

 categories of the Codes, absorbed most of the energies 

 of French jurists during the first three quarters of the 

 century ; and these Commentaries are still in common use 

 even in foreign States (like Latin America, Louisiana, 

 and Quebec) which had based their legislation on the 

 French Code. 



But changed social and political conditions raised 

 new problems and shifted the emphasis laid on older and 

 persistent needs. The spread of the Historical School 

 (championed from Germany by SAVIGNY in the second 

 quarter of the century) and the interest in historical and 

 comparative studies created by Sir Henry MAINE, FUSTEL 

 DE COULANGES, and Albert POST; the expanding claims of 

 philology, archaeology, psychology, anthropology, and 

 other sciences; the development of social philosophies in 

 France and elsewhere; the growth of commercial, indus- 

 trial, and maritime interests; and the increased attention 



