INFORMATIONAL: This passage is from the book The Life of Napoleon I by John Holland Rose.

The quality of almost pyramidal solidity characterizes another great enterprise of the Napoleonic period, the codification of French law. The difficulties of this undertaking consisted mainly in the enormous mass of decrees emanating from the National Assemblies, in political, civil, and criminal affairs. Many of those decrees, the offspring of a momentary enthusiasm, had found a place in the codes of laws which were then compiled; and yet, sagacious observers knew that several of them warred against the instincts of the Gallic race. This conviction was summed up in the brief statement of the compilers of the new code, in which they appealed from the ideas of Rousseau to the customs of the past: “New theories are but the maxims of certain individuals: the old maxims represent the sense of centuries.”

There was much force in this dictum. The overthrow of Feudalism and the old monarchy had not permanently altered the French nature. They were still the same joyous, artistic, clan-loving people whom the Latin historians described: and pride in the nation or the family was as closely linked with respect for a resolute champion of national and family interests as in the days of Caesar. Of this Roman or quasi-Gallic reaction, Napoleon was to be the regulator; and no sphere of his activities bespeaks his unerring political sagacity more than his sifting of the old and the new in the great code which was afterwards to bear his name.

Old French law had been an inextricable labyrinth of laws and customs, mainly Roman and Frankish in origin, hopelessly tangled by feudal customs, provincial privileges, ecclesiastical rights, and the later undergrowth of royal decrees; and no part of the legislation of the revolutionists met with so little resistance as their root and branch destruction of this exasperating jungle. Their difficulties only began when they endeavored to apply the principles of the Rights of Man to political, civil, and criminal affairs.

The chief of these principles relating to criminal law were that the law can only forbid actions that are harmful to society, and must only impose penalties that are strictly necessary. To these epoch-making pronouncements, the Assembly added, in 1790, that crimes should be visited only on the guilty individual, not on the family; and that penalties must be proportioned to the offences. The last two of these principles had of late been flagrantly violated; but the general pacification of France now permitted a calm consideration of the whole question of criminal law, and of its application to normal conditions.

Civil law was to be greatly influenced by the Rights of Man; but those famous declarations were to a large extent contravened in the ensuing civil strifes, and their application to real life was rendered infinitely more difficult by that predominance of the critical over the constructive faculties which marred the efforts of the revolutionary Babel-builders. Indeed, such was the ardour of those enthusiasts that they could scarcely see any difficulties. Thus, the Convention in 1793 allowed its legislative committee just one month for the preparation of a code of civil law. At the close of six weeks, Cambacérès, the reporter of the committee, was actually able to announce that it was ready. It was found to be too complex. Another commission was ordered to reconstruct it: this time, the Convention discovered that the revised edition was too concise. Two other drafts were drawn up at the orders of the Directory, but neither gave satisfaction. And thus it was reserved for the First Consul Napoleon himself to achieve what the revolutionists had only begun, building on the foundations and with the very materials which their ten years’ toil had prepared.

He had many other advantages. The Second Consul, Cambacérès, was at his side, with stores of legal experience and habits of complaisance that were of the highest value. Then, too, the principles of personal liberty and social equality were yielding ground before the more autocratic maxims of Roman law. The view of life now dominant was that of the warrior, not of the philosopher. Napoleon named Tronchet, Bigot de Préameneu, and the eloquent and learned Portalis for the redaction of the code. By ceaseless toil, they completed their first draft in four months. Then, after receiving the criticisms of the Court of Cassation and the Tribunals of Appeal, it came before the Council of State for the decision of its special committee on legislation. There it was subjected to the scrutiny of several experts, but, above all, to Napoleon himself. He presided at more than half of the 102 sittings devoted to this criticism; and sittings of eight or nine hours were scarcely long enough to satisfy his eager curiosity, his relentless activity, and his determined practicality.