We have not here the pretension to outline the complete list of the legislative texts drawn up during this period covering more than a century. It will suffice to indicate the most important modifications and reforms.
The question of divorce had been settled in the affirmative by the Civil Code. For religious reasons the Restoration had abolished it, but the Third Republic reinstated it in 1884, due largely to the energetic efforts of the late Alfred Naquet.
The industrial revolution of the first half of the 19th century exercised over French legis lation a powerful influence ; it contributed to the formidable development of incorporeal per sonal property, the rise in the value of urban real estate with the consequent crisis in rural property, and finally the growing importance of the working classes.
The legislator had to ameliorate the system of land ownership by the following methods: the creation of mortgage loan societies, pub licity of transfer of real estate and improvement in regard to mortgages generally. Concerning personal property mention should be made of the various laws relating to corporations and particularly to joint stock compapies, measures respecting lost or stolen securities, safekeeping of securities belonging to persons unqualified to guard them or in wardship, etc. The working class finally benefited by the recognition of trades union and the facilitation of their right to acquire property.
Other provisions were made with a view to improving the lot of illegitimate children to facilitate marriage (marriage by procuration exists since the war), to increase the list of professions open to women, and to extend cases of indistrainability, etc.
The Civil Code as well as the other imperial codes, need to be entirely revised with a view to the incorporation in them of new dispositions having a civil, commercial or personal charac ter. At the beginning of the 20th century it was expected that these reforms would soon be effected; a commission was appointed in 1904 on the centenary of the Civil Code, to prepare such revisal. However, no results were forth coming from this effort, but it is to be hoped that after the war France will make it a point of honor to have as complete and perfect as possible codes commensurate with actual eco nomical developments.
The Customs which played such a large part under the old regime ceded the place to written law. In principle they could no longer be considered as constituting a source of legislation. However,. in certain cases the legislator took into account existing customs (urban servitudes, vicinity relations, lease rents); on the other hand commercial usages not having been abolished by the Commercial Code remain in force provided always that they are not con trary to a legal text. But in many respects the dispositions contained in the codes are so insufficient that the French Tribunals are often obliged to have recourse to the old texts which constitute an important stock of customary rules which enrich, consequently, the legislative system of France, such as the "action pau benne* (right of creditors to revoke fraudulent acts of their debtors) and the dotal system.
By jurisprudence is meant the manner in which the laws (and the Cus toms) are interpreted by the Tribunals. It is a rule of modern French law that no one court decision can bind either the same court or an other (even of higher degree). The result of this is a great variety in the decisions and judg ments rendered.
However, a certain unity of jurisprudence has been established by the institution of an unique Cour de Cassatioh which considers legal texts from a purely legal point of view without regard to fact. On the one hand the judges do not care to pronounce a judgment contrary to former findings of the Cour de Cassation in an identical case, on the other hand the Cour de Cassation may, at a sitting of all the Cham bers, impose its point of view and decision on a Court. This is by virtue of the law of 1 April 1837 by the terms of which if the deci sion rendered on a returned appeal after a premier cassation is similar to such decision the case is heard again before the court whose finding, rendered in solemn audience, binds the new appeal.