THE LAW CANNOT STAND STILL
Walter S. Johnson*
“Les codes se font avec le temps;
a proprement parler, on ne les fait pas.”
PORTALIS.
Now that our Civil Code is to undergo a careful scrutiny and possibly some
amendment, it may be of interest to consider some of its ties with the law of
France.
The codifiers were instructed, not to carve a code out of the law of France,
but to reduce to codal form the laws of Lower Canada, following as closely
as convenient, the form and arrangement of the Code Napolion. It was no
small task. What was sought was a code reflecting and preserving a precious
body of law, inchoate because not organized, having different sources, and
rooted back to the establishment of the Sovereign Council in 1663, with the
accretion of several of the great French Ordonnances, the old French law
expounded by Dumoulin, Domat and Pothier, the Coutuime de Paris, English
commercial law, custom and usage, and the decisions of our courts –
a body
of law indigenous because acceptable and over many years moulded to our
ways of life in a world very different from that of France whether ancient or
historically
modern. It was what we conveniently call the ancien droit –
speaking; as distinct from the droit moderne, namely the Civil Code, which
came into force on August 1, 1866, with the changes made in it since that
time. The Code, then, has always been regarded as a reproduction of our
ancien droit, except where a text is indicated by the codifiers as droit nouveau.1
The task of the codifiers of the Code Napolon was a very different one.
The Revolution in its final phase was and affected a complete break with the
past – with a society and regime feudal in character, corrupt, bankrupt of
any hope for social justice, exploited for a privileged aristocracy and powerful
groups and institutions, the law a hopeless medley of conflicting coutumes,
the judges holding office often as members of the familles de robe, by inher-
itance and even by purchase. The Revolution blazed, out of control and
irresistible, as does a volcano in eruption. A world had to be made over, and
the law of France unified for all its citizens on a basis of absolute equality.
How and on what foundation and in what spirit were the codifiers to proceed?
*Of the Montreal Bar.
lMignault, Droit Civil Canadien, I, p. 11. And article 2613 expressly provides: “The
laws in force at the time of the coming into force of this code are abrogated in all cases:
In which there is a provision herein having expressly or impliedly that effect; In which
such laws are contrary to or inconsistent with any provision herein contained; In which
express provision is herein made upon the particular matter to which such laws relate”,
with a reserve as to “transactions, matters and things anterior to the Code.”
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Napol6on had brought order out of revolutionary chaos, and the nation looked
forward more calmly and with hope for better days.
It is the spirit in which the French codifiers approached their great work
that is so noticeable. The social organism, short of course of many thousands
who had been exterminated as enemies of the people, was the same –
shop-
keepers, artisans, doctors, lawyers, rentiers, peasants. Life had to go on. There
was an old society, not to be made over but to be given new and equitable
laws which would be a bridge between the old familiar ways and the revolu-
tionary achievement of liberty and equality of all citizens before the law.
Mourlon, as reproduced by Mignault 2 says of the codifiers:
Ils ont emprunt6 au droit romain, aux anciennes ordonnances, les maximes dont la
sagesse et l’utilit6 pratique avaient 6t6 consacr~es par un long usage et par l’autorit6
des hommes les plus 6minents dans la science. Dunioulin, Domat et Pothier leur
ont servi de guides. Mais it fallait assortir le vietux droit a une soci6t6 qui avait cess6
d’6tre aristocratique. La d~mocratie avait proclam6 des r~gles nouvelles.
So that the historical sources of the French law of the Code Napol6on
were the ancien droit –
the Roman law of the pays de droit 4crit and the
more Germanic coutumes of the north, the ordonnances and 9dits and arrets
de raglement from the commencement of the monarchy down to the 17th
September 1789, when the intermediary period of Revolutionary law making
began; secondly, the laws made from that date until the new Code Napol6on
was finally in force, on lVarch 31, 1804 –
the droit internzdiaire. The droit
nouveau is the Code itself with the changes made in it.
But the promulgation of the new Code decreed by the Loi du 30 ventbse,
provides by article 7 that:
A compter du jour ofi ces lois sont excutoires, les lois romaines, les ordonnances,
les coutumes g~nrales ou locales, les statuts, les r~glements, cessent d’avoir force
de loi g6n6rale ou particulire, dans les mati~res qui sont l’objet des dites lois corn-
posant le present code.
That is a more laconic and severe cancellation of the droit ancien than is our
article 2613 C.C. It left the new Code to be interpreted in the spirit that guided
the codifiers, as explained by Mourlon :3
Les Franqais sont 6gaux devant la loi; I1 n’est point permis aux citoyens de faire des
conventions dont l’effet serait de compromettre l’6galit6 devant la loi, en eitablissant
d’une manitre permanente l’in~galit6 des fortunes; Le droit civil est ind6pendant des
ides religieuses; La libert6 individuelle et l’nviolabilit6 de la propri~t6 doivent etre
protegees.
Beyond that informing spirit, bringing out of the treasuries of French law
things both old and new, there remained the problem of the daily application
of the articles of the Code, remarkable for their concise expression and con-
notative force, to cases before the courts. The Code was welcomed by the
man in the street as a literal’statement of the law governing his life and affairs,
which he who ran could read and understand, and to be read literally. Jeremy
Bentham, whose reforming ideas were well known on the Continent, sought to
2Mignault, op. cit., at p. 40.
SMignault, op. cit., at p. 40.
No. 1]
THE LAW CANNOT STAND STILL
reduce to the narrowest possible limits the need for interpretation of laws by
lawyers and judges. In his view, they thrived on the obscurity and the plethora
of laws, and their interpretations added to the uncertainty. Codification, and
strict application, with no or the least possible interpretation, of the codified
texts, finding and applying the law literally as thus stated, alone could bring
certainty and avoid the ambiguities and distinctions of judge-made law. He
drafted model codes of English law which erred because they sought to
provide a rule for every possible incident, not realizing that this was neither
the function nor within the range of any code. That the new code was intended
by the codifiers to be very complete in itself, was doubtless true. It was a
statement of the law for a new age. It had for many an excessive importance
as being so clear and so free from ambiguity that it needed no commentator
to elucidate it; though they did not all go so far as did Napol~on in his pride:
when the first commentary appeared, Napol~on cried, “Mon code est perdu.”
That, as G~ny 4 says, was not the view of many of his most able advisers in
the work of codification; yet for many years it decisively influenced the method
or principles of that interpretation and comment which in the nature of things
had to come and has been so notable a feature of French law.
And here we enter upon very interesting ground. The first commentators on
the new Code went with vast energy and enthusiasm to the work of analysis,
comment, and explanation. Proudhon, Duranton, Toullier, Duvergier, Taulier,
trained under the old customary law which invited and needed elaborate com-
ment upon text and custom and jurisprudence, refused to concede that the
new Code of positive law could entirely stand alone and needed no illumination
from the ancien droit. They were very dogmatic about it, and Troplong later
even more so. Where a text seemed to them to invite or need explanation or
justification, they went freely to old custom, coutumes, the Roman law, the vast
collections of jurisprudence, the travaux prdparatoires of the codifiers. True,
the old law had been abrogated and instead a positive rule been enacted, but
they were teachers and expositors of law, entitled, even bound in loyalty, to
go behind and beneath a positive text and independently to expound their view
of it, and to criticize the current judgments of the courts with which they
were often in conflict. The danger was that they would drag back features of
the old common law having little in common with the intent and spirit of the
new law; while the judges’ first obligation was to enforce the law of the Code.
There was, in the search for justice, a conflict between the narrow point of
4F. G~ny, Mithode d’interpritation et sources en droit positif, 2nd Ed., 1919, Vol. I,
p. 23. That the French commentators are seldom in agreement is well known. See the
amusing article, “English and French Lawyers”, in (1883), 6 Legal News, p. 321, and
the remark of a distracted Louisiana judge: “When jurists of a race so much addicted
to theoretical speculation, and so little addicted to reverence for each other’s opinions
draw a conclusion from the Code, in which they unanimously concur, we may perhaps
set it down as an obvious truth.”
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 2
view of the legalist and the broader one of the legal humanist 5 –
sterility as
against organic growth. ‘Legislative interference, often and possibly unfortun-
ate, was the penalty if the narrow road proved to be the wrong one. “But the
liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand.”
“La
libert6 et l’igalit6 dans l’ordre de la soci~ti civile itaient des bienfaits nou-
veaux.” 7
Zachariae, little consulted now, has a way of stating principles clearly and
simply. He begins his section on the Th~orie de l’interpr6tation des lois,
saying:
L’interpritation de la loi est ou grammaticale ou logique. La premiere doit donner
le sens de la loi d’apr~s le texte; la seconde, d’apr~s la raison ou le motif de la loi,
ex ratione legum.
II pent Etre ncessaire de connaltre la raison de la loi, soit pour 6clairer telle ou
telle disposition, soit pour l’6tendre, soit pour la restreindre.8
Passing in his next section to L’interpr~tation du Code Napoleon en parti-
culier, he says it is important to observe certain rules:
1. Dans les matiires tir&s de l’ancien droit ou de la 1gislation interm~diaire. il
faut consulter les sources. Toutefois, lorsqu’il y a lieu de presumer que le l~gislateur
a voulu rester fidtle i l’ancien droit, it ne faut pas, m6me dans le doute, introduire
dans le Code civil un principe de l’ancien droit, qui ne se trouve contenu dans ce
Code ni d’une mani re expresse, ni implicitement; et, pour cela, it ne faut pas perdre
de vue les consiquences resultant des modifications op6r&s par le Code civil quant ‘a
l’ancien droit, m~me relativement a des principes de ce droit non express6ment mo-
difies par le Code.9
2. La discussion du Code Napoleon au Conseil d’Etat et les observations du Tribunat
sur le projet du Code sont tr~s utiles pour son interprtation… On ne pet… tirer
de cette source les moyens de rem~dier aux lacunes du Code …
5. I1 importe encore d’observer que le projet de Code civil a 6t pr6par6 par des
hommes d’&oles diff&entes, les uns originaires des pays de coutume, les autres des
pays de droit 6crit. C’est ainsi que, dans plusieurs dispositions relatives aux droits
de la femme mari~e, il n’est question que de la femme commune en biens .. .10
5G~ny, op. cit., p. 23, note 2, says of Merlin: “Je n’ignore pas que l’opinion courante
repr~sente Merlin comme 6troitement 16giste. Voy notamment: Mimoires dit chancelier
Pasquier –
‘Je n’ai jamais connu un homme qui eft moins le sentiment du juste et de
l’injuste. Tout lui semblait bon et bien, pourvu que ce ffit une cons~quence d’un texte de
loi.’ Mais la sinc&it r’oblige i dire que la fr&uentation des oeuvres de ce juriscon-
sulte m’en laisse une impression toute diff&ente. On y trouve la marque d’un juriste so-
lid, mais non 6troit. Et, s’il n’a pas toutes les audaces de Dumoulin, ii sait pourtant, A
son exemple, faire progresser le droit en dehors de l’action 1gislative.” G~ny describes
him as the “bridge between the old law and the new.”
6Ezekiel, 32:8.
7Preface, Vol. I, p. VII, by Mass6 et Verg6 in their edition, 1854, of Zachariae’s Le
Droit Civil Frangais. There had been five editions of Zachariae in Germany when, about
1839, Aubry et Rau made a French translation.
8 0p. cit., p. 52.
9He adds: “L’inobservation de cette prgcaution a donn6 lieu i tant d’erreurs, que l’on
est amen6 1 se demander si l’interprgtation du Code civil n’a pas plus perdu que gagn6
par l’application de la r~gle qui nous occupe.”
1OHe adds: “En gin&al, la lutte entre les coutumes et le droit 6crit a eu l’influence la
plus marquee sur la redaction du Code.”
No. 1]
THE LAW CANNOT STAND STILL
And he concludes, warning that:
Tout ce qui prcade ne saurait 6branler cette rigle immuable, 5 savoir, que le Code
doit surtout s’expliquer par lui-m~me; chaque article, en partie par 1’examen attentif
de son texte, en partie par le sens qui r6sulte de sa relation avec les autres disposi-
tions du Code.
That was a fair and balanced expression, giving the Code first and last
authority, of the inherent right of judges and jurisconsults to interpret the
Code where necessary; a refusal, as G~ny says, to “facilement conqevoir que
la promulgation d’une loi civile g~n6rale efit coup6 les ailes au progr s doctrinal
ou judiciaire du droit appliqu6.” 1 But the courts were less inclined than the
commentators to accept those views, and there was conflict between la doctrine
and la jurisprudence. As the late Dean Walton explained it:
During the first fifty years after the passing of the Code Napoleon the commentators
paid very little attention to the judgments of the courts. They interpreted the Code
by the light of reason, by consideration of the old law, and by discovering from the
reports of the codifiers and the other official documents contained in Locr6 whether
the intention had been to retain the old law or to change it. In the university teach-
ing of law this was markedly the case.
As M. Esmein expresses it. “La doctrine faisait un peu la fi~re et ne se compromettait
pas volontiers dans le commerce de la jurisprudence.” On the other hand, the courts,
while regarding the professors with respect thought their theories often academic and
unpractical, and frequently decided contrary to principles laid down by the com-
mentators.
The older writers are continually obliged to say in effect, “This is the view taught
in the schools and supported by the best writers, but unfortunately the courts will
not accept it.”12
It is hardly surprising to find exponents of a narrower system, determined,
while admitting that interpretation was necessary, to refuse, or at least limit,
the aid of sources outside that Code. For them the Code was positive law,
its force and meaning to be found within itself, from its text and the spirit
a view that became very general from
that inspired it, as G~ny explains –
1841 onward. In that year, Blondeau, Dean of the Paris Faculty of Law,
lectured before the Academie des sciences morales et politiques, asserting
that the only source of judgments must be the actual law –
the Code, which
is essentially the legislator speaking, for which and for whom precedents,
authors, usage, sentiment, equity, general utility, and maxims cannot be
substituted:
A ses yeux, donc, la Ioi, toute seule, doit et peut, grace i une interpretation, en
quelque sorte interne, suffire A toutes les exigences de la vie juridique. Que si le juge,
charg6 de satisfaire ces exigences, se trouve en presence d’une loi ambiguE, absolument
insuffisante, on de loi contradictoires, et que la pens~e du lgislateur, sur le point A
trancher, lui 6chappe, Blondeau va jusqu’a dire qu.”il aura des motifs aussi puissants
pour s’abstenir que pour agir, et devra considirer ces lois conmme n’existant pas, et
Rejeter La Demande.”13
“Op. cit., p. 23. That it was acceptable as such an expression is indicated by the fact
that Mass& et Verg6 presented their translation for the use of the profession as well as
of teachers and students.
12F. P. Walton, The Scope and Interpretation of the Civil Code, 1907, p. 122. Dr.
Walton at the time was the distinguished Dean of the McGill Faculty of Law. The
book is one which every student should read.
13 The italics and capitals are G6ny’s.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
(Vol. 2
G6ny says that except for that final bit of exaggeration, “which was far from
being accepted by all”, the “fonds essentiel” of his thesis became the basis
of the method.
Enseign~e, sinon toujours mise en pratique, par les auteurs les plus accr6dit~s des
trait~s g~n&raux de droit civil, qui sont encore classiques aujourd’hui. Lg~rement
att~nu6s chez Demante et chez Marcad6, cette m6thode apparait tr6s reconnaissable
chez Demolombe, Aubry et Ran, surtout chez Laurent. C’est elle encore, que pro-
fessent G. Baudry-Lacantinerie et A. Vigi6 dans leurs ouvrages 6lmentaircs, qui
semblent le mieux representer, en moyenne, la physionomie g~nrale de l’enseigne-
ment actuel du droit civil dans les facult~s de droit franqaises. On la rencontre aussi,
A peine modifi6e, tant dans le r6cent Commentaire du Code civil de Th. Huc, que
dans la partie parue du Cours de droit civil frangais de Ch. Beudant.14
G6ny thinks Blondeau was not a little influenced by Jeremy Bentham’s
teaching, which we earlier mentioned. If so, Bentham had greater influence
on the changed current of legal interpretation in France than we in Quebec
have generally recognized. An English authority, evidently with G6ny’s state-
ment in mind, is doubtful:
It has been contended that the method of literal and logical interpretation, which
rejected all considerations of policy, and which characterized the work of the French
legal writers in the nineteenth century, known as the “cole des interprRtes” had its
origin in Bentham’s writings. However, the suggestion seems to be unfounded,
Bentham’s preference for legislation and for the strict interpretation of statutes was
inspired by the desire to reduce the law-making power of the judiciary. The “6cole
des interpr6tes” applied strict methods of interpretation because the new Codes had
abrogated the old common law with the result that gaps in the Code could not be
filled by a supplementary common law. Instead, the solution of every question had to
be found within the four corners of the statute.1 5
G6ny makes the interesting comment that to appreciate clearly Laurent’s
system, one must understand that for him an interpretation rigorously strict
of the texts was necessary “pour garantir la libert6 du citoyen, en precisant
la notion de l’ordre social”‘ 6 –
that is, one may deduce, the social order
embodied and visualized in the new Code and in its spirit of justice, liberty
and equality for all, free from suggestions of policy, shorn of privilege or
ideologies, free at least from ancient inequalities and injustices associated with
the abrogated law.
On the whole, the result has been that the old antagonisms and contrarieties
of doctrine and jurisprudence have gradually tended to disappear. The
14In note (1), p. 26, G&iy says the appearance of Laurent’s Principes de droit civil
fran ais marked the zenith of this conception of interpretation, since when his doctrine
has become less preponderant than formerly. In note (1), p. 24, G6ny says: “L’interpr6-
tation, subjective et souvent fantaisiste de Troplong, a exerc6 une influence funeste. C’est
elle, surtout, A mon avis, qui a d~termin6 la reaction violente et exacerb~e de Laurent,”
which reminds me of the quip the late revered judge Mathieu would smilingly make when
I was young at the Bar and Troplong was confidently cited to him –
trop
long!”
“Ah, oui –
W5leremy Bentham and the Law, A Symposium, London, 1948, p. 208, in the chapter by
Prof. K. Lipstein, “Bentham, Foreign Law and Foreign Lawyers.” I think, however,
that G~ny gives good reasons for his opinion. Besides, such a sharp reversal hardly
comes spontaneously –
it originates with a mind ahead of its period.
‘ 6G&iy, op. cit., p. 26, n. 1. Bugnet, the editor of Pothier and a professor in the Paris
Faculty: “Je ne connais pas le droit civil; je n’enseigne que le Code Napoleon.”
No. 1]
THE LAW CANNOT STAND STILL
jurisconsults more readily accept the consistent decisions of the courts, the
courts are influenced by the weightier doctrine. The modem writers, faced
with the social and industrial changes moving now so rapidly and with the
necessary new law designed to control them, have had to orient their thought
and in some ways their conception of the Code –
even the Code, that once
immutable foundation rock of a new regime that has merged into a newer and
more complex but not happier age.17 The law must change as society develops
–
the new wine must mature in at least not the oldest bottles.
Now what I have tried to suggest is a very brief sketch indeed of a subject
with many ramifications and a vast and complex literature. If it serves any
useful purpose it is to enable us in Quebec, when we read and cite French
doctrine and jurisprudence in our cases, to visualize in some degree the
stages and shifts of the evolution through which the French law has passed,
and to sense whether, for example, the author we cite stood for strict and
literal interpretation “within the four comers of the Code” or for a larger
interpretation grounded in the historical sources, in what may be called the
spirit of the particular text in the light of its background and historical
motive. We have both schools in Quebec.
In Quebec some interesting problems arise. The Code, as we have said,
codifies the old French civil law of Quebec as modified by statute and usage,
and the broad principles of the commercial law which had both French and
English sources. It has been customary, both before and since the Code, ih ‘
case of doubt, in civil law matters to refer to French authority, and in com-
mercial matters to both French and English authority. More and more we
have come to rely, very properly I think, on the Reports of our codifiers
when we seek an interpretation; for they carefully express their intention and
their reason –
reproducing an article of the Code ‘Napoleon, or making some
change found desirable in France, and often returning to the old law which
the French Code had rejected, especially where Pothier’s views were in
question.
The old French law is for us a precious heritage. But I think the Quebec
Act did more than guarantee to us the survival of the old law –
it guaranteed
that our civil law, if we desired, should be in future French law. It is for us
to say how much of the evolving French law we adopt from time to time.
It must be remembered that the old law codified in our Code is of massive
content. As the Honourable Thibaudeau Rinfret said recently:
On s’accorde i faire remonter A la date de l’Edit de criation du Conseil Souverain
(1663)
l’introduction de tout le droit tel qu’il existait alors en France. L’on y ajoute,
cependant, comme source du droit civil canadien, les 6dits et ordonnances franqaises
subs~quentes qui sont enregistr~es au greffe du Conseil Souverain, ainsi que les arr~ts
et les r~glements de ce Conseil ou du Conseil d’Etat du roiYS
17″The modem writers on the Code have applied themselves to fitting all this new law
into the new systems” – Walton, op. cit., p. 123.
18La revision du code civil (1955), 15 R. du B. 313.
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
(Vol. 2
Where the Code has clearly retained the old law by codifying it in an
article or group of articles, we inevitably turn to Pothier and to the con-
temporary jurisprudence to ascertain the meaning, exhuming the past and
sometimes, though plausibly enough in the circumstances, adopting a decision
of some obscure French court that pondered the question several hundred
years ago under a feudal coutume.19 The Code Napolion contains articles
adopting Pothier’s view in certain matters, and we have adopted the French
article or articles, but French courts and authors have found in those articles
new meanings and adaptations more suited to later times in France. Do we
follow Pothier, though changed conditions here would justify the later French
view? Or consider the numerous articles, new law, of the Code Napol6on
which our Code textually reproduced and which now have been debated for a
hundred and fifty years in France, with so many new and creative results
that the Code Napoleon must be revised. Are we to accept those later and
changed views, when interpreting our corresponding articles, or are we to
interpret our articles in our own way, with an eye turned rather to the past
and ignoring our indigenous changes, socially, industrially, and commercially?
To what extent are we to be influenced by the subtleties of French juris-
consults ?
The late distinguished Antonio Perrault, Q.C., raised the whole question
very acutely in his discussion of the decisions in Doucet v. Shawinigan
Carbide Co.,20 before the Association Henri Capitant in 1939.21 The issue
was the extent of the liability “rattach~e au fait des choses” under article
1054 C.C., whether there was responsibility without proof of fault, and all
the judges were greatly divided. 22 He says this:
Ce que je voudrais d~gager de cette cause c’est, si je puis dire, une legon d’A c6t6.
Elle mit en lumiare les deux &oles qui, en notre province, 6tudient et appliquent le
Code civil et rinfluence tras grande que juristes et tribunaux franqais exercent et
peuvent continuer d’exercer sur le d6veloppement de notre droit priv6.
Au jugement de quelques-uns, le 1 aofit 1866 n’a jas, par la promulgation de notre
Code Civil, marqu6 la phase ultime de 1’6volution de notre droit priv6. Ce code con-
tient des textes, des r~gles juridiques, promulgu6es par le lIgislateur comptent, et
que, donc, nous devons appliquer. Mais la soci&t6 canadienne est en mouvement; des
id&s nouvelles y p~n&trent, des coutumes s’y modifient, d’autres besoins surgissent,
une comprehension plus sociale du r6le r6serv6 au droit se fait jour. Comment r6-
soudre les probl~mes pos6s en 1939 avec des textes 6dict~s, il y a trois-quarts de
si~cles? Et l’on cherche A faire violence au texte pour y trouver des principes ou
des ides juridiques que n’avait pas le l6gislateur en 1866.
C’est alors que se dressent les conservateurs, dans le bon sens du mot, refusant aux
juristes et tribunaux d’assumer une fonction r6serv6e au l6gislateur et qui pr6tendent
19We must select, on the assumption that what is so obsolete as to be repugnant to
our concepts is no longer law.
20(1909), 35 S.C. 385; (1909), 18 K.B. 271; (1910), 42 S.C.R. 281.
2 lPremier Congr~s International de l’Association Henri Capitant, 1939, at pp. 482-484.
22A boiler in a plant exploded, injuring a workman. The trial court held art. 1054
imposed liability without proof of fault –
the employer had the boiler “under his care.”
The Court of Review held proof of fault was necessary. In Appeal, a majority, in-
fluenced by certain French authors on art. 1384 C.N., agreed with the trial judge. A
divided Supreme Court agreed with the majority in Appeal.
No. 1]
THE LAW CANNOT STAND STILL
que celui-ci peut toujours remettre son oeuvre sur le metier et la complter selon les
exigences de l’heure.23
But after mentioning the debt we owe to French jurists, Mr. Perrault utters
this warning:
En ce domaine, gare i l’exagiration. Les textes parfois diffirent Et puis – me
permettez-vous un aveu? –
nous trouvons parfois que certains professeurs ou ecri-
. plaisir leurs theories juridiques. C’est la ranuon des
rams francais compliquent
hommes trop intelligents et qui, A la fin, aboutissent A une extr6me subtilit& A ce
‘hon. juge
propos je n’ai pas oubli6 le conseil que me donna
Honor6 Gervais … Lui, si cultiv&, si amant passionn6 de toutes les oeuvres fran-
gaises, me disait un jour: “Dans votre pratique du droit, consultez les juristes fran-
rais, mais soyez prudent, d~fiez-vous de leurs distinctions trop subtiles, des fendeurs
de cheveux en quatre.”
. la facult6 de droit
There is a temptation, when the spirit and the literality of a text are in
question, to go too far afield for an answer. If the article is clear and un-
ambiguous, its spirit surely is that it shall be taken literally. If it is not clear
and unambiguous, its true meaning, its spirit or motif, must be sought first
in the sources indicated by the codifiers and next in their recorded delibera-
tions – bearing in mind that the article is positive law to be applied as nearly
as may be according to its tenor, that any foreign law or doctrine is no better
than written reason more or less illuminating or persuasive, and that the
article was drafted by Quebec jurists, both French and English, alive to the
conditions of life in Quebec. The Code laid the foundation of a system of law
for us, for our peculiar needs and use. Is the superstructure to be imposed
from without and become, not what we might think it should be, if we thought
long and deeply about it, but what foreign authors and courts have thought or
decided, and thus to become a reflection of our inertia?
The text is ours, freely chosen; the spirit of inquiry in interpretation is
French – we must become jurisconsults in our own right, achieving in-
dependent conclusions, stressing perhaps less the literal survival of French
law and opinion and somewhat more the vital and generative spirit that is at
the heart of French law –
the spirit of critical inquiry into text or doctrine,
its soundness in principle, its application as suitable or not to our conditions
and problems. Domat, Dumoulin and Pothier, Cujas, Ricard, Demolombe,
Troplong, Baudry-Lacantinerie, Laurent and Aubry et Rau –
how their
did that for French law which without them
names peal and sing to us! –
would not be what it has been and is today. We have been complacent before
that wealth of easy reference. Mignault, in 1895, felt we had been too com-
placent:
… si la littrature 16gale de notre m6re-patrie est abondante, nous ne pouvons en
dire autant de celle de notre pays. Il y a pour cela plusieurs raisons. Et d’abord le
2 3it may be well to explain a little further. Of the judges, several held for the literal
words of the article holding a person responsible for damage caused by things he has
that is not the spirit of the article which, in accordance
under his care. Others said –
with art. 1053, requires proof of fault. The point was greatly debated in France at the
time. We went to France for guidance and concluded that the article was to be taken
literally.
McGILL LAW JO URNAL
(Vol. 2
fait m~me de cette abondance et de l’excellence des commentaires du Code Napoleon,
nous permettrait, jusqu’i un certain point, de nous dispenser de commenter nous-
m~mes nos lois civiles qui sont calques sur les lois civiles frangaises. Ensuite, la
circulation tr~s limit~e que nos ouvrages peuvent se promettre, puisque cette circula-
tion, pour un ouvrage comme celui-ci, devra n~cessairement se limiter A la province de
Quebec, n’6tait pas faite pour encourager auteurs et 6diteurs A tenter l’entreprise.24
Up to a certain point, he adds, thanks to the abundant French legal liter-
ature, we could get along without works upon our own law; especially as our
Code is largely based on and follows the general plan of the Code Napol6on.
His own great work is his monument for all time –
si fionunentul requiris,
circunspice –
born of an obvious need, as he explains:
Mais il y a des differences de la plus haute importance entre les deux codes, des
titres tout entiers sont tires de notre l6gislation particuliZre et d’autres ne repro-
duisent qu’une faible portion des dispositions des titres correspondants du code civil
fran~ais. A cela, ajoutez des diffrences de detail, de phras~ologie, la substitution
d’un mot pour un autre, des variantes dans la reproduction m~me textuelle d’articles
du Code Napoleon, et on comprendra la difficult6 qui entoure l’6tude du droit en cette
province. A chaque pas, il faut se defier des commentaires qu’on 6tudie, se demander
si I’article, jusqple dans sa ponctuation, est identique, si, dans le cas d’identit6 textuelle,
cette disposition n’est pas affect6 par une autre disposition de notre droit; et ce
travail fait, il faut interroger la jurisprudence de nos tribunaux et rechercher si
l’article revoit ici la meme interpretation judiciaire qu’en France. Ceux qui ont voulu
6tudier notre loi … peuvent rendre compte du travail d~licat, minutieux, microsco-
pique m~me..
. auquel ils ont dfi se livrer.
That, it will be seen, is a warning that we must take nothing for granted
il faut se dJfier des commentateurs, chal-
if we look at French authority –
lenge, or suspect their relevance, and independently pursue our own textual
exegesis. Fifty or more years later, reflecting our maturing independence
nationally and intellectually, Trudel can confidently write :25
Notre province est peut-8tre la plus grande b~nificiaire du droit franqais. Notre Code
en sortit comme tn fils de sa m&re … La parent6 si proche . . . a eu des inconv6-
nients. Le plus grave, le plus menagant, a Wt de faire oublier le caractrre essentiel
quand il devient loi: l’autochtonit .
Notre droit remplira sa fonction dans la mesure ofi il refl~tera bien la vie sociale et
6conomique du Qu6bec … Son nord n’est pas le droit frangais, mais le milieu 6co-
nomique et social du Quebec. Non que l’exemple soit mauvais, mais le plagiat Pest
toujours. L’inspiration est vivifiante dans la seule mesure oi elle met en branle l’esprit
d’observation, le sens critique, la volont6 d’adaptation et la facult6 cr~atrice.
. .
Trudel, again, commenting on a fairly recent appeal judgment,20 would
welcome a decision, where articles of the Code seem ambiguous, recognizing
changed modern conditions rather than consecrating the drastic old law.
The question was whether a wife, guilty of adultery and separated as to bed
and board at the husband’s instance, could be deprived of her share of the
240p. cit., p. VI.
25Traiti de droit civil, I, pp. 8 and 9. In Bernard v. Leduc [1955] C.S. 289, nullity of
marriage for lack of consent due to insanity, where there were articles not ambiguous
and the authority of Loranger and Mignault and our own jurisprudence, was it neces-
sary to add quotations from Demolombe, Aubry et Rau, and Huc?
26B. v. D. (1941), 71 B.R. 469. See also, as to arts. 2485 -2489 C.C., the article by
Douglas Barlow, “La suppression de la nullit6 des polices d’assurance pour simple re-
ticence” (1955), 15 R. du B. 359.
No. I1]
THE LAW CANNOT STAND STILL
community (as she could have been under the old law). As between articles
208, 209, and 211 there was a doubt. The judgment, viewing article 209 as
penal in nature, and hence to be restrictively interpreted, allowed her right to
a share and the making of the usual inventory, but suspended an actual partage
until the death of one or the other consort. Trudel’s comment 27 seems to find
in the court’s reasoning an underlying feeling (which I do not see there)
that the old harsh law is unsuited to modem conditions where the wife’s
interest is apt to be so much more important than it was in less opulent
centuries, and hence that, as the texts presented an ambiguity, a modem view
was the proper one. He says this, a very refreshing point of view:
Cette ambiguit6 permet donc A l’interpr~te de ne pas se claquemurer dans l’ancien
droit et de tenir compte des 6volutions 6eonomiques et sociales qui, en droit appliqu6
priment une ex-g~se livresque. Faire appel i l’ancien droit, c’est du m~me coup
exhumer les conditions de vie du temps. Le texte penal 6tait alors acceptable, parce
qu’il punissait 6galement toutes les femmes adult~res. La communaut6 de biens 6tait
alors quasi universelle; un contrat de s6paration de biens 6tait des plus rare. Con-
server ce texte quand nos moeurs ont donn6 a la separation de biens une importance
telle qu’en certains milieux elle est pr~pondrante, c’est m6connaitre la fonction du
droit. La m~me peine qui 6tait autrefois juste devient partiale. Ii .st donc permis, si
les textes s’y pr~tent, de chercher une interpretation plus acceptable par la soci~t6
contemporaine. C’est a quoi ont dit penser nos tribunaux . . .
8
There remains a question of the right attitude about amendments of the
Code. It was made for our use, not we for its unchanging sovereignty.
Humanity outgrows every imposed system. The Code of 1866 met the needs
and uses of that now remote era. It was, and still is, a marvellous compilation.
As it came from its creators’ hands, whether in French or English, whether
the draftsmen were of either language, the texts were clear, brief, connotative,
the English versions sharing those supreme qualities of the French. No wonder
that the laying of impious hands upon it is regretted and dreaded –
to amend
it is to lacerate it.29 M. De La Durantaye, in the preface of his 1937 edition,
says it “a d6j au deli de cinq cents remaniements d’articles.” In the preface
to his 1950 edition he writes:
Le Code civil de 1866 avait une excellence de fond et de forme qu’aucune codification
de l’Am~rique du nord n’a encore 6gal~e. Mais il souffre maintenant de trop d’assauts
des lois modificatives…
II en est ainsi d’une foule d’innovations, dont la plupart sont mal i leur place quand
elles ne sont pas inutiles.
Entre de telles mains le Code de 1866 ne sera plus reconnaissable dans une quinzaine
d’ann~es, A la cl~bration de son centenaire.
Qui donc nous d6livrera de ces incursions barbares d’crivains sans vergogne dans
notre plus beau domaine de la latinit6?
In so far as the language of amendments is in issue, only a new race of
codifiers is needed (are we producing them?) who can and will breathe
27Traiti de droit civil, II, pp. 32-33.
2 8htalics added.
29Per Galipeault C.J. in B. v. D. (1941), 71 B.R. 469, at p. 483. Mignalt op. cit., I,
. le code civil a 6t6 amend6 d’anne en anne par le pouvoir 16gislatif. C’est
p. 57: ” ..
un droit dont nos 16gislateurs ont us6 largement et abus6 quelque pen.”
22
McGILL LAW JOURNAL
[Vol. 2
into their texts the same clean spirit of Latinity, the same meticulous and
selective choice of words in harmony with their prototype. The Code cannot
escape amendment and change:
La vie c’est le mouvement. Plus une soci&6 est active, plus rapides sont ses chan-
gements &onomiques, plus nombreux sont les problames nouveaux que la justice ou
l’autorit6 legislative ont A r~soudre. La jurisprudence 6voluant avec une sage lenteur,
il ne faut pas s’6tonner si le l~gislateur est souvent forc6 par l’opinion d’adopter des
lois nouvelles. 30
Life is movement. The reign of law means some restraint, adjusted to life
in a constant process of change.
Change is the nursery
Of musique, joye, life. and eternity,
said John Donne long ago. And judicious change may be the life of the Code
–
it changes, but it is always the Code.
3OPer the late Justice Philippe Demers, in his preface to the Supplement to the Civil
Code, 1931, by J. F. Saint-Cyr, C.R.
