Jean-Etienne-Marie Portalis

Jean-Etienne-Marie Portalis , born on April 1st 1746 with the Beausset (VAr) and died with Paris the August 25th 1807, is a statesman, Jurisconsulte and philosopher of the Droit French.

Formation and career

After studies at the oratoriens of Toulon then of Marseilles, it grants its Aix-en-Provence where he becomes lawyer at 19 years. It is not long in being essential among the very first jurisconsults of Provence. Young lawyer, it illustrates himself at the time of a lawsuit brought against Beaumarchais, creator of the Mariage of Barber . But its first true celebrity comes to him from the defense which is entrusted to him in the divorce pending presented by the countess of Mirabeau against her husband, at the end which the Count de Mirabeau east demolishes. In this year 1783 one will speak about this lawsuit to Paris, it will be worth to him a resentment with life on behalf of the Count de Mirabeau.

In 1787, Portalis becomes one of the four administrators of Provence. It is distinguished in 1788 by publishing a report against the re-establishment from the states from Provence, but keeps away from the revolutionary movements. Held for royalist under the terms of his convictions (it is said moderate constitutional monarchist), it must take refuge with Lyon then with Paris where it is imprisoned during the Terreur. It owes its safety with few things.

He is elected in 1795 with the Conseil of Old the, of which he will become the secretary, and fights the Directoire. Condemned to the deportation at the time of the coup d'etat of the 18 fructidor. It is exiled in Suisse, then in Germany, with the Holstein.

Napoleon Bonaparte recalls it in 1800. Initially appointed government commissioner, it enters the following year to the Council of State. It will have then the mission of presenting the Concordat to the legislative Body and the preliminary report/ratio on the project of Civil code of the French . In 1801, a decree charges it with the businesses concernat the worships. He becomes Minister for the worships in 1804.

He is designated as Member of the Commission of drafting of the Civil code of the French , at the sides of Tronchet, Bigot of Preameneu and Maleville, under the direction of Cambacérès. He is, for certain, “the father of the Civil code of the French ”; he writes the preliminary Discours of it , which indeed takes again many extracts of its former writings.

Portalis declares: “What a task that the drafting of a civil legislation for large people! The work would be with the top of the man power if it were a question of giving to these people an absolutely new institution, and, by forgetting that he occupies the first rank among the organized nations, one scorned to benefit from the experiment of the past, and this tradition of good sense, rules and maxims, which arrived to us and who forms the spirit of the centuries… The codes of the people are done with time; but strictly speaking, they are not done… It is useful to preserve all that it is not necessary to destroy: the laws must spare the practices, when these practices are not defects. ” Thus, Portalis exposes the need that there is to preserve the existing right.

He is elected member of the French Academy in 1803. The Civil code of the French is definitively adopted on March 21st, 1804. Large Officer of the Legion of Honor, it is named Grand Eagle of the Légion of honor in 1804.

But in 1805 the Portalis minister loses the sight and weakens. He dies out the August 25th 1807 with Paris. The shortly after its death, consecutive in an operation which was to secure it blindness, its ashes are transferred to the the Pantheon from Paris. It leaves a son Joseph Marie Portalis, diplomat and statesman.

Aix-en-Provence and Portalis

a statue of Portalis throne in front of the Court of Appeal of the Rhone delta.
One of the building of the Faculty of Law of Aix and large the Amphithéatre bear the name of Portalis.
an institute of the Faculty of Law bears the name of “Portalis Institute”.
the city celebrated in September 2007 the 200 years of died of the lawyer with various events (conferences, theater, exposures, visits…) during one month and half.

Publications

Of the Use and the abuse the philosophical spirit during the XVIIIe century (2 volumes, 1820)
Written and speeches and policies , Aix-en-Provence: University presses of Aix-Marseilles, 1988
preliminary Speech with the first project of Civil code published to the editions junctions and appeared on December 22nd, 1998

Quotations

the law allows, orders or prohibits.
the experiment proves that the men change more easily domination than of laws. (preliminary Speech made at the time of the presentation of the project of Civil code)
We call revolutionary spirit, the desire exalté to violently sacrifice all the rights to a political goal. (preliminary Speech made at the time of the presentation of the project of Civil code)
Out of criminal matter, one needs precise laws and not jurisprudence . (Preliminary Speech made at the time of the presentation of the project of Civil code).
It always should be supposed the good when the evil is not proven
When the reason does not have a brake, the error does not have terminals
a law is not unjust by that only which it is repressive; and it is souvant necessary that the law is repressive not to be insufisante"

Internal bonds

Article on the Civil code of the French .
Article on his/her son Joseph Marie Portalis.

External bonds

Biography on the site of the Foundation Napoleon
Portalis, joint editor of the Civil code
Portalis: Biography by its descendants

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