It was such a man who would read every letter, every petition addressed to him, and find time to answer all. Never too proud or too busy to hear the cry of the humblest, to reward the merit of the obscurest, to redress the grievance of the weakest, he was the man to make the highest headed general in the army—Vandamme himself, for instance,—apologized to the obscure captain who had been wantonly insulted. Any private in the ranks—the drummer boy, the grenadier—was free to step out and speak to Napoleon, and was sure to be heard as patiently as Talleyrand or Murat or Cambacérès in the palace. If any difference was made, it was in favor of the private soldier. Any citizen, male or female, high or low, could count with absolute certainty on reaching Napoleon in person or by petition in writing, and upon a reply being promptly given. One day a careless secretary mislaid one of these prayers of the lowly, and the palace was in terror at Napoleon’s wrath until the paper was found. Josephine might take a petition, smile sweetly on the supplicant, forget all about it, and suavely assure the poor dupe when meeting him next that his case was being considered. Not so Napoleon. He might not do the sweet smile, he might refuse the request, but he would give the man his answer, and if his prayers were denied, would tell him why.
The Revolution having levelled all ranks, there were no visible marks of distinction between man and man. Napoleon was too astute a politician not to pander to mankind’s innate craving for outward tokens of superiority. The Legion of Honor was created against stubborn opposition, to reward with ribbons, buttons, and pensions those who had distinguished themselves by their own efforts in any walk of life. It embraced merit of every kind,—civil, military, scientific, literary, artistic. Men of all creeds, of every rank, every calling, were eligible. The test of fitness for membership was meritorious service to the State. Such at least was Napoleon’s theory: whether he or any one else ever strictly hewed to so rigid a line may be doubted. His order of nobility had this merit: it was not hereditary, it carried no special privileges, it could not build up a caste, it kept alive the idea that success must be founded upon worth, not birth. In theory such an order of nobility was democratic to the core. Lafayette, whom Napoleon had freed from captivity, recalled to France, and reinstated in his ancestral domain, scornfully declined to enter this new order of nobility. So did many others—some because they were royalists, some because they were republicans. In a few years the institution had become so much a part of national life that the restored Bourbons dared not abolish it.
* * * * *
“I will go down to posterity with the Code in my hand,” said Napoleon with just pride, for time has proven that as a lawgiver, a modern Justinian, his work has endured.
Early in his consulate he began the great labor of codifying the laws of France,—a work which had often been suggested, and which the Convention had partially finished, but which had never been completed.
To realize the magnitude of the undertaking, we must bear in mind that, under the Old Order, there were all sorts of law and all kinds of courts. What was right in one province was wrong in another. A citizen who was familiar with the system in Languedoc would have found himself grossly ignorant in Brittany. Roman law, feudal law, royal edicts, local customs, seigniorial mandates, municipal practices, varied and clashed throughout the realm. The Revolution had prostrated the old system and had proposed to establish one uniform, modern, and equitable code of law for the whole country; but the actual carrying out of the plan was left to Napoleon.
Calling to his aid the best legal talent of the land, the First Consul set to work. Under his supervision the huge task was completed, after the steady labor of several years. The Civil Code and the Code of Civil Procedure, the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, were the four parts of the completed system, which, adopted in France, followed the advance of the Empire and still constitutes the law of a large portion of the civilized world.
Every statute passed under Napoleon’s eye. He presided over the meetings when the finished work of the codifiers came up for sanction, and his suggestions, reasoning, experience, and natural wisdom left their impress upon every page. “Never did we adjourn,” said one of the colaborers of Napoleon, “without learning something we had not known before.”
It is the glory of this Code that it put into final and permanent shape the best work of the Revolution. It was based upon the great principle that all citizens were legally equals; that primogeniture, hereditary nobility, class privileges, and exemptions were unjust; that property was sacred; that conscience was free; that state employment should be open to all, opportunities equal to all, state duties and state burdens the same to all; that laws should be simple, and legal proceedings public, swift, cheap, and just; and that personal liberty, civil right, should be inviolable.
Recognizing his right as master-builder, his persistence, zeal, active coöperation in the actual work, and the modern tone which he gave to it, the world does him no more than justice in calling it the Code Napoléon.