Early English translation of the Code Napoleon. xix, 627 pp. Originally published: London: Printed for Charles Hunter, Law Bookseller, 1824. Reprint of the second English edition. A comprehensive reformation and codification of the French civil laws, the Code Napoleon was renamed the Civil Code after the Bourbon restoration, and is still in force. It has served as the model for the legal codes of more than twenty nations throughout the world. The French Revolution overturned many of the hundreds of codes of law that had prevailed from ancient times, and added more than 14,000 pieces of legislation. After the National Convention and Directory failed in five attempts to organize this unwieldy mass, Napoleon appointed a commission to draft the new Civil Code. It was enacted in March 21, 1804, after a three year period of 87 sessions. It embodies a typically Napoleonic mix of liberalism and conservatism. Most of the freedoms won by the revolution, such as equality before the law, freedom of religion and the abolition of feudalism were preserved. At the same time, the Code reinforced patriarchal power by making the husband the ruler of the household. The translator, GEORGE SPENCE [1787-1850], was an English jurist and Barrister of the Inner Temple.

Code Napoleon, the first code of the French civil law, known at first as the Code civil des Français, was promulgated in its entirety by a law of the 30th Ventose in the year XII. (31st of March 1804). The influence of the Code Civil has been very great, not only in France but also abroad. Belgium has preserved it, and the Rhine provinces only ceased to be subject to it on the promulgation of the civil code of the German empire. Its ascendancy has been due chiefly to the clearness of its provisions, and to the spirit of equity and equality which inspires them. Numerous more recent codes have also taken it as a model: the Dutch code, the Italian, and the code of Portugal; and, more remotely, the Spanish code, and those of the Central and South American republics.