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In 1800, General Napoleon Bonaparte, as the new dictator of France, began the arduous task of revising France’s outdated and muddled legal system.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. Though not officially a part of the Code Napoleon, this decree below further defined rights and responsibilities of the French citizen
January 23, 1808 Decree. After having heard on the motives of the said project, the orators of the council of state, and the report of the special commission nominated in the sitting of the 16th of this month; the adoption having been discussed with the number of voices prescribed by article 56 of the organic senatus consultum of the 18th of Thermidor, year 10, decrees as follows:
Article 11. Eighty thousand conscripts of the conscription of the year 1809 are placed at the disposal of government.
They shall be taken from among the youths born between the 1st of Jan. 1789, and Jan. 1, 1790.
They shall be employed, should there be occasion to complete the legions of reserve of the interior, and the regiment having their depots in France. - The present senatus consultum shall be transmitted to his imperial and royal majesty.