Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/152

Ii6 HARVARD LAW REVIEW tical remedies were wanting. The deputies all said: "We must have a code," and after more than a year they adopted a resolution calling for "a general code of clear and simple laws." But, notwithstanding the fact that nearly one half the member- ship of the Assemblee Constituante was composed of lawyers, noth- ing further in that direction seems to have been accomplished by that body. The Constitution of 1791, framed by the same As- sembly, embodied the promise of a code and the short-lived Legis- lative Assembly of the same year dealt with the problem in a feeble way. Its successor, the National Convention, which contained very few lawyers, took up the subject in 1793, impelled, it is thought, by the accumulating mass of new legislation, and in July of that year, appointed a committee "to replace the chaos of old laws and customs" and ordered it to report a draft within one month. The Committee consisted of Cambaceres, probably the most learned lawyer in the Convention, Treilhard, Berlier, Merlin de Douai, and Thibaudeau, and its draft, mainly the work of the first named, as chairman, was presented,^ pursuant to order on August 9. "This plan was remarkable for its excessive brevity; there was only one article for certificates of civil status, only one for domicile, and the rest in proportion; the whole consisted of six hundred and ninety-five articles. Such a Code would have been very dangerous, for many im- portant points were not touched upon, and judges would have found themselves without guidance and without control. This feature of it, however, was deliberately adopted by its drafters. The Convention professed a profound contempt for the Roman law and the Customary law, which they looked upon as barbarian and degenerate systems. They aimed (says Barrere) to realize the dream of philosophers — to make the laws simple, democratic, and accessible to every citizen. Be- sides this defect in form, Cambaceres' draft was too much inspired by the revolutionary ideas of the day." ^ Mr. Rose^ refers to it as "hardly anything more than a collec- tion of moral maxims and in fact no code at all." On the other hand Mr. Smithers ^ thinks that "the ensemble . . . embraced a • "In the bombastic language suited to the time and the occasion." Rose, "The Code Napol6on," 40 Am. L. Rev. 833, 845. • Planiol, TRAiTf £l£mentaire dk droit civil, 5 ed., 1908, translation in i Continental Legal History Series, 280. ' Supra. • "The Code Napolfion," 40 Am. L. Reg. (n. s.) 127, 139.