carried on for a considerable length of time in France, and was near its completion, when, with many other extensive and salutary projects, it was overturned by the revolution. We allude to the redaction and reformation of the customary laws of its different provinces.

We learn that this design was conceived in the reign of Charles the seventh. Soon after he had expelled the English from France, he published an ordonnance, by which he directed all the customs and usages of his kingdom to be committed to writing, to be verified by the practitioners of each place, and to be sanctioned by the great council and parliament: the customs thus sanctioned, and those only, were from that time, to have the force of law. But, such were the obstacles in the way of this measure, that forty-two years elapsed before the customs of any one place were verified. Until the reign of Lewis the twelfth, the measure lingered; it was then resumed, and about the year 1609, the redaction of the customs was completed. Those of Paris, Orleans, Normandy, and some other places, were soon afterwards reformed: those of Artois and St. Omer's underwent a similar revision about the middle of the last century; and the reformation of the others was nearly finished. The ultimate object of the plan was to abolish all local customs; and, from the general body of the customary law, and the doctrines of the civil law, to establish an uniformity of jurisprudence throughout the kingdom. It was a favourite object of the Chancellor d'Aguesseau; and he had digested it into a regular plan.

In the reign of Louis the fourteenth, much was done for the improvement of the national jurisprudence of France: the French lawyers speak in the highest terms of several of his ordonnances; we are assured by them that they contain the wisest and most salutary regulations, methodically arranged, and clearly expressed. Certain it is, that, in every maritime state of Europe, his Ordonnance sur la Marine is read and admired. The late Mr. Sergeant Hill always mentioned it in terms of the highest praise. During the reign of Louis the fifteenth, little was accomplished in the prosecution of this object but, in the early days of the French revolution, its admirers foretold the wonderful improvements which the national assembly would effect in government and law. Other constitutions, it was said, had been fortuitously framed; their parts had been composed to meet present emergencies, and constituted no systematic whole; they contained many discordant principles, many jarring forms, much unmixed evil, some imperfect good, many institutions, which had long survived their motive, and many of which reason had never been the author, or utility the object. The legislators of the revolution were to produce a very different code. They were to tolerate nothing of antiquity which reason did not respect; to shrink from no novelty, to which reason might lead; to despise narrow coastings, and to hazard, under the polarity of reason, a bolder navigation; to discover, in unexplored regions, the treasure of public felicity; and to diffuse it, in their legislative enactments, through every portion of the

Gallic empire. Such were the splendid prophecies of the effects of the new jurisprudence ;-it is unnecessary to add how little the effects of the new constitution corresponded with the prediction: yet, let us be just,—if it had not been for the unwise, the illaudable, and the disastrous coalition of Austria and Prussia against France, and their invasion of her territory, the constitutional assembly might have done good.

The fate of the first legislators of the revolution did not deprive them of a tribe of imitators.

In the midst of his victories, Napoléon aspired to legislative fame. The Reminiscent apprehends, that the five codes of law, compiled under the eye of Napoléon, though in some respects imperfect, will always be highly honourable to his memory. He himself thought so favourably of them, as to express to a friend of the Reminiscent, a wish, that he might descend to posterity with these in his hands. It is greatly to be desired, that some one, properly qualified for the task, would favour the public with a comparative view of their leading principles, and those of the law of England. Unfortunately, such a work can be expected from none but a person, who is at once conversant with the principles, the theory, and the practice of the jurisprudence of both countries:-and Romilly is now no more.

The Discussions sur le Code Civil show the manner in which that code was compiled: Napoléon appears in them to great advantage. The magistrates, who assisted at them, possessed unquestionably great talents; but Napoléon frequently enters

E

the lists with them, generally shows himself their equal, at times their superior, and always takes the humane and liberal side. It adds to his honour, that between him and his assessors, no distinction of rank is ever discernible: Pliny could not act with greater ease, or speak with more freedom before Trajan, than the assessors of Napoléon acted and spoke before him.

On one question of the very highest importance, -whether it be most for the advantage of a nation that it should have few or many courts of judicature, England and France are now directly at issue. With the exception of a few local jurisdictions, the judicial establishments in England are confined to the chancellor, the vice-chancellor, the master of the rolls, twelve judges, six masters in chancery, and some masters or officers resembling them in the other courts; in France, there are at least 600 courts, and 5,600 judges:-in addition, each kingdom has its justices of peace; in France, they amount to 27,000.

Nothing shows the difficulty of introducing a constitutional innovation with a salutary effect more than the fate of the establishment of juries in France. It was supposed that, as soon as the nation should have a judge and twelve men to try their civil or criminal causes, they would obtain a judicial court, perfectly resembling that of an English judge with his English jury. Under this impression, they constituted courts, in which one man was to preside and propound the law, and twelve were to decide the fact; but they did not recollect that, to make this

institution resemble our jury courts, centuries ought previously to have existed, and to have incorporated into every jury an habitual confidence in the judge, an habitual deference to every thing that should fall from him, and an habitual respect for their own important character, and to have equally instilled into the judge a sincere respect for the jury, a consciousness that he was watched, and might, in case of error, be exposed; and, that though the jurymen were silent, they were not without attention, and something bordering on jealousy. The consequence has been, that no two things are more dissimilar for practical purposes, than the juries of England and the juries of France.

Cross-examination is sometimes abused; but it is certainly the surest method of eliciting truth that has been devised. When the affair of the necklace of the late queen of France was in agitation, a person observed to lord Thurlow, that the repeated examinations of the parties in France had cleared up nothing: "True," said his lordship, "but Buller,

Garrow, and a Middlesex jury, would, if such a "matter had been brought before them, have made "it all, in half an hour, as clear as day-light."

III. 6.

The Order of Avocâts in France, and its extinction in the French Revolution.

THE French avocât nearly resembled in rank and function, the English barrister. In the very earliest era of the history of France, her lawyers formed a