and criminal, is compiled, or comprised, or codified in eight codes, as follows: Le Code Civil; Le Code de Procedure Civile; Le Code de Commerce; Le Code Penal; Le Code d'Instruc tion Criminelle (these last two in one volume, which thus includes the whole law and procedure in criminal cases); Le Code Forestier; Le Codes de Justice Militaire, for the army and navy, respectively. The scope and purpose of each of these codes is generally and per haps sufficiently disclosed by its title. It ought to be said, however, that no one of them exceeds in size one ordinary volume, and, as indicated above, the two criminal codes make but one volume. This codifica tion is supplemented by the Lois Usuelles, a volume of decrees, ordinances, opinions of the Counsel of State, and the Colonial legis lation. This completes and modifies the sev eral codes, and records the changes and growth of the law. It is annotated by refer ences to the writings of standard jurists, to the judgments of the Court of Cassation, and to the Ministerial Circulars. All this is so condensed and digested as to be included in a single fair-sized volume. Thus we have the whole body of law in no more than eight portable and compact volumes, including a due and adequate annotations of the codes. There are also, as with us, some series of reports, to which lawyers must refer in pre paring for trial and argument. The decisions of the Cour de Cassation, which are brief and concise, and some of the decisions of the courts of appeal— but all together only a small number of reportable cases per annum —arc published in an annual or biennial volume of reports, carefully annotated, to which reference is also made in the several editions of the Codes. The text of all the Codes is also to be had without annotation in a single volume, which one can put into his greatcoat pocket. Thus the French solve the problem of condensation and com pression, and succeed in keeping their law within reasonable limits. The Codes are onlv
very sparingly amended, and having been drafted at the outset with exceeding skill, stand as monuments to the genius of the French people for law-making. Obviously, the most important and inter esting of these Codes is the Code Civil or Code Napoleon, which, as its name somewhat sug gests, contains the law of obligations, of persons, of personal status and of property. It contains 2281 sections, many of them of only a line or two in length. It is contained in a volume of less than 350 pages, which in cludes also the Constitutional Statutes, a full annotation of each section, and an index of the whole. Thus within these modest bounds is comprised the whole body of civil substan tive law, aside from the law governing com mercial transactions, which is dealt with in the Code de Commerce. Some steps were taken during the reign of Louis XIV. looking to a codification of the laws, but little was accomplished; and, as we know, the French owe to the construc tive genius of Napoleon the present scheme of codification, which was undertaken during the Consulate at his dictation, and finally completed, one code at a time, shortly after the end of his reign. The Civil Code, which was the first, was enacted and became the law of the land March 21, 1804. It was pre pared by a council of jurists, assigned by the First Consul to the work, but he himself took great interest in it, and attended many of the sessions of the Commission, contribut ing much by his acute suggestions to the form and content of the law. Well did he say of that work: "I shall go down to poster ity with the Code in my hand;" and it may well be that, in the fullness of time, when all the rest of his stupendous achievement is almost forgotten, his Code, like that of Jus tinian may remain and abide. Certainly it is his "Monumentum tere perennium." What do the moderns know, or much care, in general, about Justinian except for his Code; and yet.
