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 BULL
STREET
– The art of the Con
Napoleonic Code 1804
Napoleon was born on the island of Corsica on August
15, 1769 and was the second of eight children. He was well educated
and eventually attended the Ecole Militarie in Paris where he received his military training.
He received his artillery commission just in time to take part in the French
Revolution. In eight-years he was promoted to General for his excellent tactical
work in the battle of Toulon
which removed the remaining vestiges of the hated British from the Continent.
However, after the coup de Thermidor, in 1794 Napoleon’s stock dropped
precipitously and he was summarily thrown in bastion. He his release became
a great leader and was able to inspire his men with such slogans as “honor,
glory and riches.” However, in spite of the massive public relations campaign,
Napoleon, the man that many had said would go into battle prepared with over
200 different options, he was not always successful and literally gave up his
army career after being clabbered in Syria by the British as the 18th
century drew to a close.
Ultimately, Napoleon who in spite of his loses had become a
folk-hero became the de facto ruler of France and consolidated his hold on the
office by winning the battle of Marengo on June
14, 1800. Napoleon was made Consul for life by a weary French
population that had tired of war, having been at it for a decade without reprieve.
He pulled the economy out of a recession, realigned the bureaucracy to be more
functional and created a rapprochement with the Vatican in 1801. He was determined to crown
himself emperor and invited the Pope to personally do the honors. However, while
the Pope held the crown in anticipation of anointing Napoleon, the Crown was
taken out of his hands and Napoleon placed it on his own head to clearly show
who was in charge.
However, it wasn’t to much longer that Napoleon was back on
the battlefield, racking up one victory after another. In the meantime, he was
also involved in making a dramatic shift in the French Legal Code. Napoleon
appointed French legal expert, Jean-Etienne-Marie Portalis to create a fair
and equitable series of laws for the country. Interestingly enough, Napoleon
himself attended almost half of the commission’s 87 meetings. After years of
preparation what later became known as the Napoleonic Law went into effect in
1804. This was a Herculean task as there were some 14,000 new laws put onto
the books after the French Revolution. He had to take those worth incorporating
and massage them. They had to broken down into much more distinct categories
and refined. It was divided into five sections: the Civil Code, the Code of
Civil Procedure (finished in 1806), the Code of Criminal Procedure (finished
in 1808) and Penal Code (finished in 1810), and the Commercial Code (finished
in 1807).
The laws were extremely well thought out and indeed represented
the spirit of the French Revolution. It created religious tolerance, public
trials, created redistribution the land and all in all was a fair minded document
which only left out a few things. There was also an attempt to create what would
be termed the Rural Code as well which would deal with the rights of farmers
but eventually, the commission determined that they were well covered by what
had preceded it. In the meantime, by this time, Napoleon was cooling his heals
on Elba and could not provide any inspiration.
It was not particularly kind to women and it created an almost
second class of citizenship for them. They could not vote, the could not own
property and they could not witness legal documents. Moreover, men could cohabit
with another woman for years before that would become a legal issue where with
the fair sex, it was one strike and they were out. And God forbid that she was
in the sack with another man, this gave the husband the unalienable right to
do the old girl in. However, if the situation was reversed, she could easily
lose her head over it. Besides shortchanging women, minors, had little or no
rights and illegitimate children had no right of inheritance.
The Napoleonic Law was deemed an enlightened act and today
more than 70 governing bodies have modeled their own laws to reflect what had
been created. The State of Louisiana follows the code almost precisely.
The particular areas that it addresses are:
1.
Equality of all in the eyes of the
law.
2.
No recognition of privileges of birth.
3.
Freedom of religion
4.
Separation of the church and the state
5.
Strengthening the family by:
a.
Placing emphasis on the husband and
father as the head of the family
b.
Restricting grounds for divorce to three reasons: adultery, conviction
of a serious crime, and grave insults, excesses or cruelty; however divorce
could be granted by mutual agreement, as long as the grounds were kept private
c.
Defining who could inherit the family
property.”[26]
Napoleon deserves credit for any number of advancements
to the French culture including the creation of a massive public works project
which specialized in the recreation of classical architecture. Among other things,
Napoleon created the Are de triomphe de l’Etaile, the Vendome Column and the
façade of the Chamber of Deputies. However, few remember his achievements in
creating Paris as the cultural center
of the universe at that time and his military victories were more often enigmatic
than reality based, however, his laws will probably stand forever as a great
achievement. The Napoleonic or Civil Code created was eventually copied by twenty
other nations. Early advocates, willingly or unwillingly were Holland,
the Duchy of Warsaw and many of his thoughts were incorporated into the Spanish
constitution of 1812. Moreover, the Napoleonic Code became somewhat of a rallying
cry for revolutionaries.
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