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This guide is not designed to cover the entire Code Napoléon. It is mostly designed to explain elements useful in creating family histories so that one can have a grasp of how to deal with certain issues.
Civil divorce was allowed under the Code Napoléon until the restoration abolished it in 1816. This was a mutual consent divorce system, and France did not return to such a system until 20th century. Divorce at all was not legal again until 1884, and then on the common Western terms of female adultery, mental illness, or other incapacity of the woman to fulfill her marriage obligations.
Female adultery could be punished by up to 2 years in prison throughout the nineteenth century. Male adultery, on the other hand, was punishable only by a fine and then only if proved that the man maintained his concubine in the family home. Thus a man could do whatever he liked outside the house, but he could be publicly humiliated for getting caught shagging the maid.
Because many of us have to deal with the death of a character, some knowledge of inheritance law is necessary. Any state where the law is based on English Common Law has complete freedom for a testator to dispose of his goods. This is not the case under the Code Napoléon, which makes it difficult for most English-speaking writers to understand.
Most importantly, a will is unnecessary. One cannot be disowned or disinherited by his/her family. All children, whether legitimate or illegitimate, must inherit equal portions of the estate (as long as the illegitimate children have been legally recognised by the father if inheriting from the father's side of the family).
The order of precedence for inheritance is as follows:
Most importantly, all children must receive an equal portion of the estate. Parents may receive up to one quarter of the estate, each, unless there are no other heirs, then they receive the whole estate. If there are no children and no spouse, the parents would receive half the estate and the rest would be divided among the siblings of the deceased. Grandparents inherit if the parents are deceased and there are no siblings. The surviving spouse takes a share only if there is no other family to assist her (a widower would have his own estate and thus would not be in need of a share of his wife's property, thus the affected person was invariably a woman). Only if there are no closer relatives do other family members take a share, all in equal proportion.
The "widow's portion" of one quarter of the estate was codified only in 1891. It has no bearing on our time period.
Adult, unmarried women have full rights under the law - they will inherit in the same manner as men. If a girl child loses her father, say, before she is adult or married, she will still inherit but the property will pass to her husband when she does marry.
Most property at this time was still real estate. To avoid the division of a property (sometimes an impossible task, should the property be a house, for example), one inheritor may be given life use of that property but all proceeds must be divided between the other inheritors. If the person with the life interest wishes to sell the property, he/she can only do so with the consent of all other inheritors - think of a piece of land as an investment, and all the inheritors as shareholders. There must be unanimous consent among them to sell the property and the proceeds must be divided among them. For purposes of inheritance, shares in the Banque de France were considered real estate rather than movable goods.
In 1819, the droit d'aubaine was abolished. This meant that foreigners residing in France were subject to the same laws as native-born Frenchmen. This is a step forward, however, because previously, all property belonging to a foreigner returned to the state at his death. After 1819, a foreigner's family could inherit his estate at his death.
Entailments, a common form of estate-protection in England, were not allowed under the Code Napoléon. In 1808, this stricture was modified to allow certain members of the nobility to entail the title and a certain amount of property on the eldest son. The rest of the estate had to be divided among the remaining children, however. This law applied, in our time period, only to those nobles created by Napoléon or Louis XVIII.
Most measures to protect against division of the estate proved ineffective -- it is still impossible to choose how to divide properties among children since all must receive an equal share of all properties. However, inter vivos transfers always remained perfectly legal. An inter vivos transfer is a transfer of property "between the living". One could single out favoured children by making gifts of various pieces of property or amounts of money during one's lifetime. In the latter half of the century (it seems to have taken a couple generations to figure out what would and would not be allowed, and various small changes were made in the mid-nineteenth century to the inheritance laws), businesses were largely protected by registered partnerships, a milder form of incorporation that still gave the business legal standing on its own.
A small amount of property could be disposed of as the testator wished. The Réserve légale must be left intact, regardless of inter vivos gifts. This proportion is determined by the number of children. If one child, then half the estate must devolve to that child; if two children, two thirds of the estate so that each inherits one third; if three or more children, then three quarters of the estate must be reserved for inheritance by the children. The remainder, the quotit disponible, may be left to whomever the testator wishes, be it spouse, friend, or charity. All are treated equally. This portion may also be given over to preference one child over another. If there are no children, then the other members of the family will qualify to inherit the réserve légale.
One must write a will if one wishes to dispose of the quotit disponible in a manner other than division amongst heirs. A will must be signed by witnesses, but it does not have to be notarised in order to be valid. A notarised will, however, is a stronger legal bond if there is a fear of contestation.
French property law still works in this manner. There are various other ways to get around it, but it is a major cause of declining birthrate among the propertied classes in the 19th century. The generation about which we write is really the first generation to be strongly affected. Their parents were born just prior to the revolution, and the first inheritance laws to force equality of inheritance came in 1790. That generation was the first who could plan how to deal with the law, since their parents were presented with it after their childbearing years had commenced. Our generation will witness the division of estates created by the death of grandparents and perhaps even by the deaths of parents. Since implications were still not entirely known at the time the parents were growing up, our generation is likely the first in their families to be impacted at an impressionable age and to be encouraged to plan their families based on inheritance law. They are more likely to marry later than their parents and worry more about illegitimate children.
Code Napoléon: http://www.napoleonseries.org/reference/political/code.cfm
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