li8 HARVARD LAW REVIEW old regime, and who was thus placed at the head of a commission to codify the laws of new France? Yet Napoleon said of him later that he had been "the soul of the debates in the Council of State." 1° Next in importance was Portalis, a Provencal, who had suffered imprisonment during the Revolution. He has been called " " the philosopher of the commission, " for he "was specially distinguished in the art of legal and philosophical exposition." ^^ Then came Bigot de Preameneu, a native of Rennes and a mild supporter of the Revolution, but obliged to hide during the Terror. At the time of his appointment he was "government commissioner" in the Cour de Cassation}^ It has been said that his "adroitness and pliancy were destined to be proved in more fields than one." Finally there was Malleville, who had been a practitioner at Bordeaux and later a Judge of the [Cour de Cassation. He is said to have been "profoimdly versed in the Roman Law" and became "the first of a long line of commentators on the Code," which he assisted in drafting." And not only was this coromission distinguished in its personnel from the individual standpoint; it was also collectively a represen- tative one. For Tronchet and Malleville came from the bench, bringing to the work of the commission the benefits of judicial ex- perience; Portalis and Bigot, per contra, represented the bar with a training no less valuable. Again Tronchet and Bigot came from
- 'le pays du droit coutumier^^ and were schooled "in the Parlement
and the custom of Paris." On the other hand, "Portalis and Malle- ville represented the legal traditions of the land of written law." This combination of elements and experience was ideal, and it is easy to understand how the outcome was a "compromise between northern Teutonism and the Latin inheritance of the south." ^^ 1" I Continental Legal History Series, 287. " Id. The same author adds: "Possibly he has been too highly praised. As a philosopher, he certainly did not possess an original mind; he attained only the heights of mediocrity; and his style, filled with the phraseology of the period, was soon anti- quated. But he was not a mere jurist; he was an enlightened man, with an open mind, and a marked moderation; and it is for this that we should especially thank him." ^ 9 Cambridge Modern History, 150. " I Continental Legal History Series, 281. " " 9 Cambridge Modern History, 150. » Id., 151.
