Bonaparte sought to surround the act of
adoption with much solemnity, declaring it to be one of the grandest
acts imaginable. Yet, lest marriage should thereby be discouraged,
celibates were expressly debarred from the privileges of adopting
heirs. The precaution shows how keenly this able ruler peered into
the future. Doubtless, he surmised that in the future the population
of France would cease to expand at the normal rate, owing to the
working of the law compelling the equal division of property among all
the children of a family. To this law he was certainly opposed.
Equality in regard to the bequest of property was one of the sacred
maxims of revolutionary jurists, who had limited the right of free
disposal by bequest to one-tenth of each estate: nine-tenths being of
necessity divided equally among the direct heirs. Yet so strong was
the reaction in favour of the Roman principle of paternal authority,
that Bonaparte and a majority of the drafters of the new Code scrupled
not to assail that maxim, and to claim for the father larger
discretionary powers over the disposal of his property. They demanded
that the disposable share should vary according to the wealth of the
testator--a remarkable proposal, which proves him to be anything but
the unflinching champion of revolutionary legal ideas which popular
French histories have generally depicted him.

This proposal would have re-established liberty of bequest in its most
pernicious form, granting almost limitless discretionary power to the
wealthy, while restricting or denying it to the poor.[166] Fortunately
for his reputation in France, the suggestion was rejected; and the
law, as finally adopted, fixed the disposable share as one-half of the
property, if there was but one heir; one-third, if there were two
heirs; one-fourth, if there were three; and so on, diminishing as the
size of the family increased. This sliding scale, varying inversely
with the size of the family, is open to an obvious objection: it
granted liberty of bequest only in cases where the family was small,
but practically lapsed when the family attained to patriarchal
dimensions. The natural result has been that the birth-rate has
suffered a serious and prolonged check in France. It seems certain
that the First Consul foresaw this result. His experience of peasant
life must have warned him that the law, even as now amended, would
stunt the population of France and ultimately bring about that [Greek