March 21, 1804

Napoleonic Code

Law of 30 Ventôse consolidates and promulgates the French Civil Code

One short law bound 36 already-promulgated statutes into a single numbered book. It did not switch on 2,281 brand-new rules.

30 Ventôse, Year XII — 21 March 1804

The law of 30 Ventôse, Year XII — 21 March 1804 — gathered 36 previously enacted civil laws into one body titled the Code civil des Français. It arranged them in three books, covering persons, property, and the different ways of acquiring property, under a single continuous numbering sequence of 2,281 articles.

Napoleon Bonaparte signed it as First Consul. He was not yet emperor, and the familiar name Code Napoléon was imposed only in 1807.

Articles 6 and 7

Article 6 preserved the individual effective dates of the component laws, so 21 March was not the first day on which every provision took effect.

Article 7 did the demolition: it ended the legal force of Roman law, ordinances, general and local customs, statutes and regulations in the civil matters the code now governed.

Who actually wrote it

Four jurists formed the drafting commission — Portalis, Tronchet, Maleville and Bigot de Préameneu. Tronchet hosted and presided over their working meetings; Portalis wrote the Preliminary Address.

Cambacérès, who had produced three unsuccessful revolutionary-era drafts, chaired many of the Council of State deliberations that revised the project, and Napoleon took part in those debates frequently. Courts reviewed the draft, and the Legislative Body enacted its titles as separate laws through 1803 and early 1804 — which is what left 36 statutes needing to be bound together.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 7 sources 2 audit passes

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →