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French Civil Code, 1804
After four years of debate and planning, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte enacts a new legal framework for France, known as the “Napoleonic Code.” The civil code gave post-revolutionary France its first coherent set of laws concerning property, colonial affairs, the family, and individual rights.
In 1800, General Napoleon Bonaparte, as the new dictator of France, began the arduous task of revising France’s outdated and muddled legal system. He established a special commission, led by J.J. Cambaceres, which met more than 80 times to discuss the revolutionary legal revisions, and Napoleon presided over nearly half of these sessions. In March 1804, the Napoleonic Code was finally approved.
It codified several branches of law, including commercial and criminal law, and divided civil law into categories of property and family.
Article 1235. Every payment supposes a debt; that which has been paid without being due is subject to recovery. The recovery is not permitted with respect to natural obligations which have been voluntarily discharged.
Article 1253. He who owes several debts has the right to declare, when he pays, which debt it is his purpose to discharge.
Article 1254. He who owes one debt bearing interest…cannot, without the consent of the creditor, apply the payment which he makes to the capital in preference to the…interest: the payment made on the capital and interest, but which is not entire, is applied at first to the interest.
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