section_path: Reforms/Napoleonic Code
section_name: Napoleonic Code
paragraph_text: Napoleonic Code
  
  Napoleon's civil code of laws, known from 1807 as the Napoleonic Code, was implemented in March 1804. It was prepared by committees of legal experts under the supervision of Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, the Second Consul. Napoleon participated actively in the sessions of the Council of State that revised the drafts. The code introduced a clearly written and accessible set of national laws to replace the various regional and customary law systems that had operated in France.
  
  The civil code entrenched the principles of equality before the law, religious toleration, secure property rights, equal inheritance for all legitimate children, and the abolition of the vestiges of feudalism. However, it also reduced the rights of women and children and severely restricted the grounds for divorce.
  
  A criminal code was promulgated in 1808, and eventually seven codes of law were produced under Napoleon. The Napoleonic code was carried by Napoleon's armies across Europe and influenced the law in many parts of the world. Cobban described it as, "the most effective agency for the propagation of the basic principles of the French Revolution."