NAPOLEON AND HIS CODE 127 were new; but these were poorly drafted, and had to be recast in 1838, Many important laws have since been enacted on commerce, inde- pendently of the Code, on topics such as commercial partnerships, checks, warehouses, maritime mortgage, colHsions, etc. In spite of these, oiu* commercial law is very much behind the times. Colbert's laws, more than two centuries old, still form its basis, and yet since then com- mercial methods have made rapid strides and have altered to an extent as complete as it was unforseen." Esmein's ^^ estimate is somewhat more favorable. He says: "The Code de Commerce was scarcely more than a revised and emended edition of the ordonnances of 1673 and 1681; while the Code de Procedure Civile borrowed its chief elements from the ordonnance of 1667. In the case of the Code d' Instruction Criminelle a distinctly new departiure was made; the procedure introduced by the Revolution into courts where judgment was given remained public and oral, with full liberty of defence; the preliminary procedure, however, before the examining court (juge d 'in- struction or chambre des mises en accusation) was borrowed from the ordonnance of 1670; it was the procedure of the old law, without its cruelty, but secret and written, and generally not in the presence of both parties. The Code Penal maintained the principles of the Revolu- tion, but increased the penalties. It substituted for the system of fixed penalties, in cases of temporary pimishment, a maximum and a minimmn, between the limits of which judges could assess the amount. Even in the case of misdemeanours, it admitted the system of extenuating cir- ciunstances, which allowed them still further to decrease and alter the penalty in so far as the offence was mitigated by such circumstances." Influence Abroad Had the Napoleonic codification movement never spread be- yond France it would have been one of the most remarkable in modern times, because of the difficulties overcome and the abuses remedied. But the movement did not stop with the French frontier, for other countries were soon to discover the merits of that legislation. "The influence of the Code Civil," observes Professor Esmein, "has been very great, not only in France but also abroad. Belgiimi 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." ^
- ' 10 Encyclopaedia Britannica, ii ed., 906, 923.
M 6 Id., II ed., 634, 635.
