INTERMEDIARY LAW.
General Summary of the Work of the Revolutionary Assemblies.— The legislative work of the Revolution has been qualified as intermediary law as it formed the transition between the old French law and the new, the law covered by the Napoleonic codes.
The intermediary period is by far the shortest with which we will deal in this treatise. It extended from the re-establishment of the "Etats Generaux" (1789) to the promul gation of the Civil Code '(1804).
It is characterized above all by the abolition of what remained of the feudal period, of the hives and customs existing between private par ties, of privileges which had been inaugurated to the profit of certain lands and certain per sons few in number.
We will cite the principal judicial reforms accomplished during this troublous period; never has the legislator been so active or accomplished more in any country at any i time. And yet war abroad in addition to civil war did not render his task any the easier.
Personal Status.— Among the many in stances of progress realized by the Revolution ary Assemblies the foremost place is held by the protection to individual liberty and the establishment of equality for all. The year 1789 witnessed the extinction of caste and rank in France—henceforth everyone is citizen.
Of the measures concerning personal status the most interesting were suppression of pa ternal authority over majors, institution of divorce, which had been forbidden by the Catholic Church about the middle of the Moyen Age, and the organization of a social state, or rather its secularisation, as the clergy hitherto instructed to look after this very often carried out their task in a manner which left much to be desired.
Property.,— Here again it is necessary to give prominence to the extraordinary transfour mations to which French law was subject dur ing the next 15 years. The French Revolution carried on actively' the enfranchisement of the land and the reorganization of property. Property once more became free and absolute; the owner had the absolute right of sway over his property. The numerous taxes to which the
land was subjected during the feudal period were entirely suppressed; the distinction be tween dominium eminent and dominium utile disappeared; all those vexatious dispositions, both arbitrary and traditional, which hampered the sale or transfer of property were abolished.
For the privileges of birthright and mascu linity existing under the feudal period, the Revolutionary law substituted the principle of equality in regard to inheritance, a principle by the way still opposed at the present time by the conservative party.
The privilege of contracting loans bearing interest, contrary to the precepts of the fathers of the Church and the scholastics was proclaimed, to the great advantage of the economical and commercial development of France. In 1795 a mortgage law was promul gated establishing the system of mortgage cedules, an idea, moreover, which was adopted many years later by Australia (Act Torrens). In regard to alienations of property the method of transcription was adopted with the object of giving them publicity. Very numerous other reforms have left their trace on French law as practised to-day.
Judicial 0 rgani zation.— The Constituent Assembly abolished the old magistracy and created in its place local tribunals which sub sequently developed into civil tribunals for all districts, which is the jurisdiction prevailing at the present Jay for common law. It insti tuted the court of cessation as well the estab lishment of a jury for criminal cases.
For the state of anarchy and confusion extant under the old regime the Constituent Assembly substituted the system of separation of powers, being inspired in this direction from Montesquieu and the principles applied in Eng land. The judicial functions were hereafter separate from administrative functions.
Assuredly one of the most democratic and much debated reforms of the Constituent As sembly was election to the office of magistrate, but this measure was rescinded and substituted by government nomination.