nerally depicted him.

This proposal would have re-established liberty of bequest in its most
pernicious form, granting almost limitless discretionary power to the
wealthy, while restricting or denying it to the poor.[166] Fortunately
for his reputation in France, the suggestion was rejected; and the
law, as finally adopted, fixed the disposable share as one-half of the
property, if there was but one heir; one-third, if there were two
heirs; one-fourth, if there were three; and so on, diminishing as the
size of the family increased. This sliding scale, varying inversely
with the size of the family, is open to an obvious objection: it
granted liberty of bequest only in cases where the family was small,
but practically lapsed when the family attained to patriarchal
dimensions. The natural result has been that the birth-rate has
suffered a serious and prolonged check in France. It seems certain
that the First Consul foresaw this result. His experience of peasant
life must have warned him that the law, even as now amended, would
stunt the population of France and ultimately bring about that [Greek:
oliganthropia] which saps all great military enterprises. The great
captain did all in his power to prevent the French settling down in a
self-contained national life; he strove to stir them up to world-wide
undertakings, and for the success of his future imperial schemes a
redundant population was an absolute necessity.

The Civil Code became law in 1804: after undergoing some slight
modifications and additions, it was, in 1807 renamed the Code
Napoleon. Its provisions had already, in 1806, been adopted in Italy.
In 1810 Holland, and the newly-annexed coast-line of the North Sea as
far as Hamburg, and even Luebeck on the Baltic, received it as the
basis of their laws, as did the Grand Duchy of Berg in 1811.
Indirectly it has also exerted an immense influence on the legislation
of Central and Southern Germany, Prussia, Switzerland, and Spain:
while many of the Central and South American States have also
borrowed its salient features.

A Code of Civil Procedure was promulgated in France in 1806, one of
Commerce in 1807, of "Criminal Instruction" in 1808, and a Penal Code
in 1810. Except that they were more reactionary in spirit than the
Civil Code, there is little that calls for notice here, the Penal Code
especially showing little advance in intelligence or clemency on the
older laws of France. Even in 1802, officials favoured