DOMA.T, or DOUMAT, JEAN, a distinguished French civilian, was born at Clermont in Auvergne, on the 30th of November 1625. He connected himself with the brilliant circle of literary recluses at the Port-Royal, among whom his reputation stood high both for jeeis prudence and ethics. He was a very modest man, and comparatively little is known of his personal history. For nearly thirty years he presided, with marked credit, iu the lower court of judicature at Clermont. He was in the coufidence of Pascal, attended him on his death-bed, and was intrusted with many of his papers. His great systematic work on the civil law appears to have long existed and been perused by his friends in manuscript before it was published. Rumours of tho value of the work coming to Louis XIV., Domat received a pension, and took up his abode in Paris, where he received encouragement from the kindness of D'Aguesseau, then conseiller d'dtat, through whose patronage many distinguished jurists appear to have found their way to notice. Domat married Mademoiselle Blonde], by whom ho had thirteen children—a circumstance deemed worthy of particular commemoration in France. He died at Paris on the 14th of March 1695, and, notwithstanding his pension and his office, is said to have ended his days in extreme poverty. In his works he stands pre-euiluently above all jurists of his age, and acquired a reputation throughout Europe that has hardly been subsequently reached by any of his countrymen. His work, 'Les Lois Civiles dans lour Ordre Nature], suivies du Droit Public,' appeared anonymously in 1689, and is said to have been for some time attributed to Delanucy, professor of jurisprudence in the University of Paris—a statement scarcely reconcileable with the alleged reputation of the work while in manuscript. The author's method of dividing the subject is, by first treating of the rules of law in general. This branch of the work is almost of au ethical character. The principle of every law, as having
a foundation in utility or some other reason connected with morals or religion, is the main feature of the work, and in this it adopts the system which was afterwards more elaborately carried out and applied to a larger number of subjects by Montesquicu. The substance of the law is divided into private and public. The former class is sub divided into tho law of contracts and the law of succession. The public law is divided into government, official and executorial arrange meuts, crimes, and procedure civil and criminal. There have bet several editions of the work in French, generally in two volumes, folio.
Although intended for the use of Frenchmen, it does not include the provincial peculiarities of tenure, but is nearly an echo of the Roman law purified of matters peculiar to Roman habits and customs, and thus it became a book for Europe at large. In 1722 it was translated into English by William Strahan, with additional remarks on some material differences between the civil law and the law of England,' 2 vols. folio. This translation is the most extensive systematic work on the civil law in the English language. Doroat paid great attention to mercantile law, and it is believed that this translation has been of extensive service in keeping the mercantile law in general, and the admiralty and consistorial systems of England in unison with the civil law, and consequently with the practice of the rest of Europe. Domat's work used to be in high esteem in Scotland before the study of civil law was neglected at the Scottish bar. A posthumous work by Domat, Leguin Delectus, ex Libris Digeatorum et Codicis,' was published at Amsterdam in 1703, 4to. M. Victor Cousin wrote in the 'Journal des Savants,' 1S43, a series of articles on Domat, in which he published some particulars respecting him previously little known.