LAW AS ANCILLARY SCIENCE TO HISTORY

NAPOLEONIC CIVIL CODE

The longest lasting effect of Napoleon Bonaparte's rule over France was his overseeing the implementation of a series of national laws collectively known as the Civil Code, or Code Napoleon. The principal tenet of the Civil Code was that every French person was equal before the law.
In 1804, Napoléon I appointed a commission of four persons to undertake the task of compiling the Napoleonic Code. Their efforts, along withthose of J. J. Cambacérès, were instrumental in the preparation of the final draft. The Napoleonic Code assimilated the private law of France, which was the law governing transactions and relationships between individuals. The Code, which is regarded by some commentators as the first modern counterpart to roman law, is currently in effect in France in an amended form.
The Napoleonic Code is a revised version of the Roman law or civillaw, which predominated in Europe, with numerous Frenchmodifications, some of which were based on the Germanic law that had been in effect in northern France. The code draws upon the Institutesof the Roman Corpus Juris Civilis for its categories of the civil law: property rights, such as licenses; the acquisition of property, such astrusts; and personal status, such as legitimacy of birth.
One century later, after many new codes have been promulgated throughout the world, and while the movement of law reform is still accelerating, for a number of well-known reasons : establishment of a new international order, trend towards modernization in many countries, etc., the moment seems appropriate to wonder how influential Napoleon’s Code is on the codifications which are taking place now. Of course, we shall consider this Code, not as it was in 1804, but in its present state, after two centuries of legislative additions and amendments, judicial construction and academic interpretation. In the 20th century, codes in Brazil, Mexico, Greece, and Peru became the products of a comparative method, with ideas borrowed from Napoleonic civil code.
More than two centuries after its promulgation, the Napoleonic Code is still living law in a great part of the world. History has thus partly justified the melancholic words uttered by Napoleon in exile: “My real glory is not the forty battles I won, for Waterloo’s defeat will destroy the memory of as many victories.… What nothing will destroy, what will live forever, is my Civil Code.”
Thus we can rightly conclude that the civil codes incorporated by Napoleon I during his reign influenced the civil codes of many other nations and helps us in understanding and viewing history in a different way.