A Brief History of Napoleon Civil Code
by: Hizbullah Hanif
From hundreds of potraits, paintings and arts that picturing the famous military strategist and emperor of France Napoleon Bonaparte, the one that i admired the most is perhaps the most unpopular piece.
Napoléon Ier couronné par le Temps, écrit le Code Civil, a painting by Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse. Subjectively speaking its picture was not as romantic as the scene from Bouchot’s painting “General Bonaparte during the coupe d’etat of 18 brumaire” nor as heroic as “Napoleon crossing the Alps” by Jacques Louis David but nonetheless it is the best visualization of the emperor’s greatest achievement. When we discussed about him, people over decades had argued what is the greatest victory for the emperor and its impregnable army. from the battle of Marengo to Austerlitz it was extraordinary exciting to analyze Napoleon’s genius mind of military tactics and strategy that we tend to forgot that the best gift and most influential action he has done doesn’t came from muskets and the swords but on the paper and an ink.
The painting contain a scene where Bonaparte holding his code above the nation’s symbol while being crowned by the personification of time, this apotheosis holds the meaning that his code of law was very influential not just to maintain the existence of the nation by defendng the ideals of the revolution but also played a role to reshape the continents and bring new ideas to the world.
When I was first asked “Who is the most influential law makers in the history?” I would rather said Feurbach and his famous maxim. Later I thought the more suitable answer would be the emperor himself. Not only because he conducted the making of the code but also spread it all over europe and later by second hand to the rest of the world.
What is the contents of the code and how is spread would be an appropriate question to begin the remaining paragraphs. Before napoleonic code was entered to a force in 1804 France has a huge mess of legal system, the south of the country mostly used roman laws while the northern provinces often used customary law. To describe this terribly disintegrated law framework Voltaire once wrote:
“Is it not an absurd an terrible thing that that which is true in one village is false in another? What kind of barbarism is it that citizen must live under different laws? When you travel in this kingdom you change legal system as often as you change horses.”
There has been several works to codified and unifying the law system in France but it was obstructed due to conflict of interest. After the revolution sparks, unification of law has became mandatory since there has been huge changes of social structure as the church power was suppressed and the noble class was destroyed. The final civil code that enacted in 1804 consist of 3 books, Book I of Persons, Book II of Property and Different Modification of Properrty and Book III of Different Modes of acquiring Property. The code was also largerly known for its controversy of representing the mix of conservatism and liberalism, several ideals of revolution were kept into act such as equality before the law, abolition of hereditary privilidges and the freedom of religion, in the other hand the colonial slavery was reintroduced and the rights of women was deprived.
How Napoleon civil code was spread was also a story of contradiction. Althought the code often praised as the legal instrument and interpretation of french revolution ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The civil code was spread across europe by the most undemocratic way, through war and imperialism. At the first it was the neighbouring countries that invaded france and trying to restore the monarchy, as a soldier and later Leader of the republic he knew that the best defense was a strong offense. He was just can’t stop fighting until the whole continents taken, he even challenged Britain by set up a blockade and invaded any country who did not follow the order, causing millions of death and many legitimate government was overthrown. In spite of this tragedy, the military campaign that bought him power to almost whole of europe also bring a new light to the continent, along with the war he brought his civil code to every nation he conquered, estabilishing new regime of law in which civil power was stronger than before, and new ideals of liberty and democracy was estabilished.
The legacy of the civil code was still remain today in the form of improved civil law that mostly used by the countries that previously invaded by France. These countries also played a role to spread the code as they grow in the colonies. Like the Dutch government who estabilished civil law system to Dutch East Indies. The only competitor to the system is England who was able to repel the invasion and estabilished common law system to their worldwide colonies, thanks to their matchless navy and the strategic position of their blessed island.
