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In 1800, General Napoleon Bonaparte, as the new dictator of France, began the arduous task of revising France’s outdated and muddled legal system.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 agreement with the Catholic Church and the pope plays a critical role in redefining Napoleon's France.
Article 13. His Holiness [the pope], in the interest of peace and the happy re-establishment of the Catholic religion, declares that neither he nor his successors will disturb in any manner those who have acquired alienated ecclesiastical possessions [revolutionaries who have confiscated lands and material], and that as a result the ownership of these possessions, the rights and the revenues that attach to them will remain incommutably in their possession or in that of their legal successors.
Article 14. The Government will assure a fitting maintenance [pay and provision] for the bishops and the curates whose dioceses and parishes will be included in the new circumscription.
Article 64 (added from the “Organic Laws”). The salary of the archbishops will be 15,000 francs.
Article 65 (added from the “Organic Laws”). The salary of the bishops will be 10,000 francs.