1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ortolan, Joseph Louis Elzéar

ORTOLAN, JOSEPH LOUIS ELZÉAR (1802-1873), French jurist, was born at Toulon, on the 21st of August 1802. He studied law at Aix and Paris, and early made his name by two volumes, Explication historique des institutes de Justinien (1827), and Histoire de la législation romaine (1828), the first of which has been frequently republished. He was made assistant librarian to the court of cassation, and was promoted after the Revolution of 1830 to be secretary-general. He was also commissioned to give a course of lectures at the Sorbonne on constitutional law, and in 1836 was appointed to the chair of comparative criminal law at the university of Paris. He published many works on constitutional and comparative law, of which the following may be mentioned: Histoire du droit constitutionnel en Europe pendant le moyen âge (1831); Introduction historique au cours de législation penale comparée (1841); he was the author of a volume of poetry Les enfantines (1845). He died in Paris, on the 27th of March 1873.