As part of the Chaire Napoléon,  the Catholic Institute for Advanced Studies (ICES) is hosting an international colloquium on the theme of “Napoleon and Law: Law and Justice during the Consulate and the Empire”, to be held on 14, 15 and 16 March 2017 in its Richelieu Amphitheatre. It is co-organised by the Fondation Napoléon, and in partnership with the Conseil départemental de Vendée, the town of La Roche-sur-Yon, and the Vendée Historical Research Center.

Statement of intent:
It can be said of few periods in history that the Law had been as much at the center of the thought of men and of the action of States as it was under the Consulate and French Empire. This “return of the lawyers”, led by a head of state who was not one, helped to resolve the major issues, make the ideas accepted, write the Code and the codes, to stabilise institutions, to redesign the judicial organization and many other things besides. It was a major achievement, and indeed largely perennial: despite the necessary adaptations, the legacy of this abounding “decade” lives on (or survives) still at the heart of the French and European legal systems. As the Napoleonic bicentenaries draw to a close, the ICES and its Chaire Napoléon have asked some thirty European historians and jurists to take a look at the history in the light of recent research, to make a new assessment of it, and to compare their views on the modernity or relevence today of the Napoleonic roots of our law.

Scholarly committee: Thierry Lentz (Fondation Napoléon / ICES); Guillaume Bernard (ICES); Jean-Pierre Deschodt (ICES); Jean-Louis Halperin (ENS); Patrice Gueniffey (EHESS).

Program and practical information on the ICES website.
The proceedings of the colloquium will be published by CNRS Éditions in early November 2017.
Admission free, pre-registration with Julien Dupont..