autocratic maxims of Roman law. The view of life now dominant was that
of the warrior not of the philosopher. Bonaparte named Tronchet, Bigot
de Preameneu, and the eloquent and learned Portalis for the redaction
of the code. By ceaseless toil they completed their first draft in
four months. Then, after receiving the criticisms of the Court of
Cassation and the Tribunals of Appeal, it came before the Council of
State for the decision of its special committee on legislation. There
it was subjected to the scrutiny of several experts, but, above all,
to Bonaparte himself. He presided at more than half of the 102
sittings devoted to this criticism; and sittings of eight or nine
hours were scarcely long enough to satisfy his eager curiosity, his
relentless activity, and his determined practicality.

From the notes of Thibaudeau one of the members of this revising
committee, we catch a glimpse of the part there played by the First
Consul. We see him listening intently to the discussions of the
jurists, taking up and sorting the threads of thought when a tangle
seemed imminent, and presenting the result in some striking pattern.
We watch his methodizing spirit at work on the cumbrous legal
phraseology, hammering it out into clear, ductile French. We feel the
unerring sagacity, which acted as a political and social touchstone,
testing, approving, or rejecting multifarious details drawn from old
French law or from the customs of the Revolution; and finally we
wonder at the architectural skill which worked the 2,281 articles of
the Code into an almost unassailable pile. To the skill and patience
of the three chief redactors that result is, of course, very largely
due: yet, in its mingling of strength, simplicity, and symmetry, we
may discern the projection of Napoleon's genius over what had hitherto
been a legal chaos.

Some blocks of the pyramid were almost entirely his own. He widened
the area of French citizenship; above all, he strengthened the
structure of the family by enhancing the father's authority. Herein
his Corsican instincts and the requirements of statecraft led him to
undo much of the legislation of the revolutionists. Their ideal was
individual liberty: his aim was to establish public order by
autocratic methods. They had sought to make of the family a little
republic, founded on the principles of liberty and equality; but in
the new code the paternal authority reappeared no less strict, albeit
less severe in s