In criminal matters, the relation of the punishments to the offences is determined according to philosophical and moral notions, of singular justness. The efforts of an enlightened legislator struggling against the violence and irreflectiveness of the barbarian manners, are clearly distinguishable. The enactments under the title or head of '_Cœde et morte hominum_'--['Of the slaying and death of men'], compared to those of a correspondent nature in use amongst other nations, is a very remarkable example of these characteristics. {110} In other codes, it is almost exclusively the damage which is held to constitute the crime, and the penalty is comprised in that tangible reparation which results from a principle of composition. But here the crime is reduced to its moral and true element, intention. The different shades of criminality, the purely involuntary homicide, accidental homicide, justifiable homicide, and homicide with or without premeditation, are distinguished and defined almost as well as in our codes, and the punishments vary on a very equitable scale. The legislator has rendered justice more indiscriminate; he has attempted, if not to abolish, at least to lessen, that diversity in the legal value of men established by the other barbarian laws. The only distinction he has maintained is that of the free man and the slave. With regard to free men, the punishment is not varied either according to the national origin, or according to the rank of the defunct, but simply according to the different degrees of moral culpability in the murderer. With regard to slaves, not venturing to completely deprive masters of the right of life and death, attempts are at all events made to restrain it, by making it subject to a public and regular process. The text of the law deserves to be cited.