Civil law was to be greatly influenced by the Rights of Man; but those famous declarations were to a large extent contravened in the ensuing civil strifes, and their application to real life was rendered infinitely more difficult by that predominance of the critical over the constructive faculties which marred the efforts of the revolutionary Babel-builders.  Indeed, such was the ardour of those enthusiasts that they could scarcely see any difficulties.  Thus, the Convention in 1793 allowed its legislative committee just one month for the preparation of a code of civil law.  At the close of six weeks Cambaceres, the reporter of the committee, was actually able to announce that it was ready.  It was found to be too complex.  Another commission was ordered to reconstruct it:  this time the Convention discovered that the revised edition was too concise.  Two other drafts were drawn up at the orders of the Directory, but neither gave satisfaction.  And thus it was reserved for the First Consul to achieve what the revolutionists had only begun, building on the foundations and with the very materials which their ten years’ toil had prepared.

He had many other advantages.  The Second Consul, Cambaceres, was at his side, with stores of legal experience and habits of complaisance that were of the highest value.  Then, too, the principles of personal liberty and social equality were yielding ground before the more autocratic maxims of Roman law.  The view of life now dominant was that of the warrior not of the philosopher.  Bonaparte named Tronchet, Bigot de Preameneu, and the eloquent and learned Portalis for the redaction of the code.  By ceaseless toil they completed their first draft in four months.  Then, after receiving the criticisms of the Court of Cassation and the Tribunals of Appeal, it came before the Council of State for the decision of its special committee on legislation.  There it was subjected to the scrutiny of several experts, but, above all, to Bonaparte himself.  He presided at more than half of the 102 sittings devoted to this criticism; and sittings of eight or nine hours were scarcely long enough to satisfy his eager curiosity, his relentless activity, and his determined practicality.

From the notes of Thibaudeau one of the members of this revising committee, we catch a glimpse of the part there played by the First Consul.  We see him listening intently to the discussions of the jurists, taking up and sorting the threads of thought when a tangle seemed imminent, and presenting the result in some striking pattern.  We watch his methodizing spirit at work on the cumbrous legal phraseology, hammering it out into clear, ductile French.  We feel the unerring sagacity, which acted as a political and social touchstone, testing, approving, or rejecting multifarious details drawn from old French law or from the customs of the Revolution; and finally we wonder at the architectural skill which worked the 2,281 articles of the Code into an almost unassailable pile.  To the skill and patience of the three chief redactors that result is, of course, very largely due:  yet, in its mingling of strength, simplicity, and symmetry, we may discern the projection of Napoleon’s genius over what had hitherto been a legal chaos.