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In 1800, General Napoleon Bonaparte, as the new dictator of France, began the arduous task of revising France’s outdated and muddled legal system.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 1384. A person is responsible not only for the injury which is caused by his own act, but also for the injury which is caused by the act of persons for whom he is bound to answer, or by things which he has had under his care
Article 1385. The owner of an animal, or he who makes use of it while it is in his employment, is responsible for the injury which the animal has occasioned, whether the animal were in his custody, or whether it had strayed or escaped.
Article 1386. The proprietor of a building is responsible for the injury caused by its fall, when it has happened in consequence of the want of necessary repairs or from defect in its construction.