pproving, 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 some details than that of the _ancien regime._ The
family was thenceforth modelled on the idea dominant in the State,
that authority and responsible action pertained to a single
individual. The father controlled the conduct of his children: his
consent was necessary for the marriage of sons up to their
twenty-fifth year, for that of daughters up to their twenty-first
year; and other regulations were framed in the same spirit.[162] Thus
there was rebuilt in France the institution of the family on an almost
Roman basis; and these customs, contrasting sharply with the domestic
anarchy of the Anglo-Saxon race, have had a mighty influence in
fashioning the character of the French, as of the other Latin peoples,
to a ductility that yields a ready obedience to local officials,
drill-sergeants, and the central Government.

In other respects Bonaparte's influence on the code was equally
potent. He raised the age at which marriage could be legally
contracted to that of eighteen for men, and fifteen for women, and he
prescribed a formula of obedience to be repeated by the bride to her
husband; while the latter was bound to protect and support the
wife.[163]

And yet, on the question of divorce, Bonaparte's action was
sufficiently ambiguous to reawaken Josephine's fears; and the
detractors of the great man have some ground for declaring that