130 HARVARD LAW REVIEW "The Code Napoleon," says Brissaud,^ "was attacked with fury, even in France, by certain political parties blinded by hatred of the Empire. Those whose ideals were the Decrees of the Convention could not help looking upon this Code with disdain ..." Outside of France it was criticized by some eminent authorities including Savigny who cha;racterized its framers as "dilettanti" ^^ and their work as "only a mechanical mixture of the Revolution and pre-Revolution laws . . . not even a logical whole, a formal imity that might be logically developed to meet new cases." ^* His main point of attack, however, was political and there, as Brissaud well says,^® "his patriotism carried him too far." Moreover this contemporary criticism was levelled chiefly at provisions which, it was charged, were not adapted to France, and this the lapse of time has largely sUenced. Surely the French people have had opportunity to judge whether this code is suited to them. And surely also no piece of legislation has ever acquired such permanence in France. The sentiment toward it there is comparable only to the American reverence for the Federal Con- stitution. Certain important omissions, indeed, are now recognized by French writers,^" such as a satisfactory mortgage system, and adequate treatment of the law of movables (personalty), and especially literary or artistic property, of artificial persons, insur- ance, and bankruptcy, and any attempt to cover the subject of industrial relations. But as Esmein observes: "... this only proves that it could not foretell the future, for most of these questions are concerned with economic phenomena and social relations which did not exist at the time when it was framed." *^ Subsequent Changes After more than a century the number of articles (2281) in the Code remains the same — a not insignificant mark of permanence. " I Continental Legal History Series, 290-91, note. " Id. " 2 Continental Legal History Series, 577. " Supra.
- " I Continental Legal History Series, 290, 291; Esmein, 6 Encyclopaedia
Britannica, II ed., 634, 635. « Id.
