Legal history of France
The legal history of France is commonly divided into three periods: that of the old French law, that of the Revolutionary or intermediary law, and that of the Napoleonic law or Droit nouveau.
Revolutionary law
"The legislative work of the French Revolution has been qualified as intermediary law since it formed the transition between the old French law and the new, the law covered by the Napoleonic codes." "The private law of the French Revolution is to-day no longer considered an intermediary law. Yet from a positivist point of view, most of the provisions enacted in this area between 1788 to 1799 were of short duration." Feudalism was abolished on the night of 4 August 1789. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was adopted on the 26 August.Early in 1791 freedom of defense became the standard; any citizen was allowed to defend another. From the beginning, the authorities were concerned about this experiment without future. Derasse suggests it was a "collective suicide" by the lawyers in the Assembly, but cannot be used for justifying aggression or taking revenge. In criminal cases, the expansion of the right... gave priority to the spoken word. Former "advocates" lost their title, their distinctive form of dress, their status, and their professional orders and adapted their practices to the new political and legal situation. The Penal Code is dated 25 September.
On 9 May, the Assembly discussed the right to petition. The next day a decree passed banning all petitions bearing "collective signatures". Article III specifically recognised the right of active citizens to meet together to draw up petitions and addresses and present them to municipal authorities.