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Jean-Jacques-Regis de Cambaceres Duke of Parma
Portrait by Jean-Baptiste Greuze , late 18th century
Second Consul of France
In office 12 December 1799 ? 18 May 1804 Serving with Napoleon Bonaparte and Charles-Francois Lebrun
Preceded by	Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes (as Provisional Consul)
Succeeded by	Republic abolished
Archchancellor of the Empire
In office 18 May 1804 – 14 April 1814 20 March 1815 – 22 June 1815
Monarch	Napoleon I
Minister of Justice
In office 20 March 1815 – 22 June 1815
Preceded by	Charles Dambray
Succeeded by	Antoine Jacques Claude Joseph, comte Boulay de la Meurthe
President of the National Convention
In office 7 October 1794 ? 22 October 1794
Preceded by	Andre Dumont
Succeeded by	Pierre Louis Prieur
Personal details
Born	18 October 1753 Montpellier , France
Died	8 March 1824 (1824-03-08) (aged 70) Paris , France
Resting place	Pere Lachaise Cemetery
Signature

Jean-Jacques-Regis de Cambaceres, Duke of Parma ( French pronunciation: [??? ?ak ?e?is d? k??base??s] , 18 October 1753 – 8 March 1824), was a French nobleman, lawyer, freemason and statesman during the French Revolution and the First Empire . He is best remembered as one of the authors of the Napoleonic Code , ^[1] which still forms the basis of French civil law and French-inspired civil law in many countries.

Early life [ edit ]

Cambaceres was born in Montpellier , into a family of the legal nobility . ^{[2] [3]} Although his childhood was relatively poor, his brother Etienne Hubert de Cambaceres later became a cardinal , and his father later became mayor of Montpellier.

In 1774, Cambaceres graduated in law from the college d'Aix and succeeded his father as Councillor in the court of accounts and finances in Toulouse . ^{[4] [5]} He was a supporter of the French Revolution of 1789, and was elected as an extra deputy to represent the nobility of Montpellier, in case the government doubled the nobility's delegation at the meeting of the Estates-General at Versailles . However, as the delegation was not increased, he never took his seat. In 1792, he represented the department of Herault at the National Convention which assembled and proclaimed the First French Republic in September 1792.

National Convention [ edit ]

In revolutionary terms, Cambaceres was a moderate republican and sat left of center during the National Convention. ^[6] During the trial of Louis XVI he protested that the Convention did not have the power to sit as a court and demanded that the king should have due facilities for his defence. Nevertheless, when the trial proceeded, Cambaceres voted with the majority that declared Louis to be guilty, but recommended that the penalty should be postponed until it could be ratified by a legislative body. ^[2] This would later save him from being executed for regicide. During the convention, many of his decisions (like the latter) were well thought out and calculated. Cambaceres made sure that he never committed himself to a certain faction. ^[7] His legal expertise made him useful to all parties; he was a friend to all and an enemy to none. ^[3] However, due to this, his fellow representatives at the convention did criticize him for sometimes fluctuating on some positions. ^[5]

Rise under Napoleon [ edit ]

Cambaceres was a member of the Committee of General Defence from 1793 until the end of 1794, and later became a member of its infamous successor, the Committee of Public Safety after the fall of Robespierre. ^[5] In the meantime he worked on much of the legislation of the revolutionary period. ^[2] During 1795, he was employed as a diplomat and negotiated peace with Spain, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany , the Kingdom of Prussia and the Batavian Republic . His remarkable debating skills gave him a spot as a councilor of the Five Hundred from 1795 to 1799. ^[5]

Cambaceres was considered too conservative to be one of the five Directors who took power in the coup of 1795 and, finding himself in opposition to the Executive Directory , he retired from politics. In 1799, however, as the Revolution entered a more moderate phase, he became Minister of Justice. He supported the coup of 18 Brumaire (in November 1799) that brought Napoleon Bonaparte to power as First Consul , a new regime designed to establish a stable constitutional republic.

Napoleonic Code [ edit ]

In December 1799, Cambaceres was appointed Second Consul under Bonaparte. He owed this appointment to his vast legal knowledge and his reputation as a moderate republican . His most important work during this period, and arguably during his entire political career, was the drawing up of a new Civil Law Code (later called the Napoleonic Code ; France's first modern legal code). ^[8] The Code was promulgated by Bonaparte (as Emperor Napoleon ) in 1804. In the end, the Napoleonic Code was the work of Cambaceres and a commission of four lawyers.

The Code was a minor revised form of Roman law , with minor modifications drawn from the laws of the Franks still current in northern France ( Coutume de Paris ). The Code was later extended by Napoleon's occupations to Poland , Italy , the Netherlands , Belgium , and Western Germany. Cambaceres' work has thus been influential in European legal history. However, versions of the Code are only still in force in Quebec (which was never under Napoleon' control) and Louisiana , which was only briefly under Napoleon's control.

The Napoleonic Code dealt with Civil Law; other codes ensued for Penal Law, criminal procedure , and civil procedure.

Life with Napoleon (1804?1815) [ edit ]

Cambaceres disapproved of Bonaparte's accumulation of power into his own hands (culminating in the proclamation of the First French Empire on 18 May 1804) but retained high office under Napoleon: Arch-Chancellor of the Empire and President of the House of Peers from 2 June, to 7 July 1815. He also became a prince of the Empire and in 1808 was made Duke of Parma (French: duc de Parme ). ^[2] His duchy was one of the twenty created as a duche grand-fief (among 2200 noble titles created by Napoleon)?a rare hereditary honor, extinguished upon Cambaceres' death in 1824. He was essentially second in command of France during the Napoleonic era.

Under Napoleon, he was a force for moderation and reason, opposing adventures such as the Spanish affairs in 1808 and the invasion of Russia in 1812. ^[2] Nevertheless, Cambaceres was extremely trusted by Napoleon and was constantly consulted for advice; Cambaceres even sat as Council of State when Bonaparte was involved in other affairs. ^[6] As Napoleon became increasingly obsessed with military affairs, Cambaceres became the de facto domestic head of government of France, a position which inevitably made him increasingly unpopular as France's economic situation grew worse. As more and more of Napoleon's ministers proved themselves untrustworthy, Cambaceres' power continued to grow. ^[6] His taste for high living also attracted hostile comments. Nevertheless, he was given credit for the justice and moderation of the government, although the enforcement of conscription was increasingly resented towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars .

When the Empire fell in 1814, Cambaceres retired to private life but was later called upon during Napoleon's brief return to power in 1815. During the Hundred Days , the short period of time when Napoleon returned from exile, Cambaceres served as the minister of justice. ^[9] After the restoration of the monarchy , he was in danger of arrest for his revolutionary activities, and he was exiled from France in 1816. The fact that he had opposed the execution of Louis XVI counted in his favor, and in May 1818 his civil rights as a citizen of France were restored. From 1815 and on, Cambaceres used the title of Duke of Cambaceres (on the fall of the Empire, the Duchy of Parma passed to former Empress Marie Louise). He was a member of the Academie Francaise and lived quietly in Paris until his death in 1824. ^[10]

Private life [ edit ]

The common belief that Cambaceres is responsible for decriminalizing homosexuality in France is in error. ^{[ citation needed ]}

Before the French Revolution, sodomy had been a capital crime under royal legislation. The penalty was burning at the stake. Very few men, however, were ever actually prosecuted and executed for consensual sodomy (no more than five in the entire eighteenth century). Sodomites arrested by the police were more usually released with a warning or held in prison for, at most, a few weeks or months. The National Constituent Assembly revised French criminal law in 1791 and got rid of a variety of offenses inspired by religion, including blasphemy . Sodomy was not specifically mentioned but was covered under the umbrella of 'religious crimes'. Since there was no public debate, its motives remain unknown (a similar state of affairs occurred during the early years of the Russian Revolution ). ^[11]

Cambaceres was a homosexual, his sexual orientation was well-known, and he does not seem to have made any effort to conceal it. He remained unmarried, and kept to the company of other bachelors. Napoleon is recorded as making a number of jokes on the subject. ^[12] Upon hearing that Cambaceres had recruited a woman for a mission, Napoleon responded with, "my compliments, so you have come closer to women?". ^[13] Robert Badinter once mentioned in a speech to the French National Assembly , during debates on reforming the homosexual age of consent , that Cambaceres was known in the gardens of the Palais-Royal as "Tante Urlurette". ^{[14] [15]}

In fact, however, Cambaceres was not responsible for ending the legal prosecution of homosexuals. ^{[ citation needed ]} He did play a key role in drafting the Code Napoleon, but this was a civil law code. He had nothing to do with the Penal Code of 1810, ^{[ citation needed ]} which covered sexual crimes.

The authors of the Penal Code of 1810 had the option of reintroducing a law against male homosexuality but there is no evidence that they even considered doing so. ^{[ citation needed ]} This had nothing to do with the influence of Cambaceres, as recent research ^{[ which? ]} has shown. However, Napoleonic officials could and did repress public expressions of homosexuality using other laws, such as "offenses against public decency". ^{[ citation needed ]} Nevertheless, despite police surveillance and harassment, the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era was a time of relative freedom for homosexuals and opened the modern era of legal toleration for homosexuality in Europe. ^{[ citation needed ]} Napoleonic conquests imposed the principles of Napoleon's Penal Code (including the decriminalization of homosexuality) on many other parts of Europe, including Belgium, the Netherlands, the Rhineland, and Italy. Other states freely followed the French example, including Bavaria in 1813 and Spain in 1822. ^[16]

In addition to jesting about his homosexuality, Cambaceres' colleagues did not fail to poke fun at his gluttony. When he met with the council while Napoleon was away, everyone knew that the meeting would be over before lunch. ^[8] He was known for having the best dinners in France and for his extravagant lifestyle. Cambaceres was recorded as saying "a country is governed by good dinner parties". His estate was worth around 7.3 million francs (around €50 million in 2015 euros) upon his death in 1824. ^[4] His body now lies in the cemetery of Pere Lachaise where he was buried with military honors. ^[17]

Freemasonry [ edit ]

Cambaceres was admitted to the lodge of "Les Amis Fideles" in Montpellier in 1775. During Napoleon's reign, he was charged by the Emperor to monitor Freemasonry in France. From 1805 to 1815, he was the assistant of Joseph Bonaparte , Grand Master of Grand Orient de France , and managed the post-revolutionary rebirth of French freemasonry. During his term, more than 1200 lodges were created. ^{[18] [19] [20] [21]}

Bibliography [ edit ]

• 1973 - Lettres inedites a Napoleon, 1802-1814 . Paris: Editions Klincksieck. Bevat: T. 1: Janvier 1802 - juillet 1807 ; T. 2: Avril 1808 - avril 1814 ISBN   2-252-01464-4 (t. 1), ISBN   2-252-01525-X (t. 2))

References [ edit ]

External links [ edit ]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jean-Jacques-Regis de Cambaceres .

• (in French) The House of Cambaceres Archived 14 October 2016 at the Wayback Machine
• (in French) French Council of State website on Cambaceres
• The Code Napoleon