The climax of these beneficent changes was a corresponding reform and simplification of the laws. The name of Napoleon has been erased from many of his institutions, but it still endures on that splendid system of jurisprudence known as the Code Napoléon, and in the annals of law-making it vies in luster with that of Justinian. The monarchy, before its fall, had become aware of the inconvenience attaching to the diversity of legal practice in the various French provinces. At one extreme was the old customary law of the northern inhabitants, at the other was the nearly pure Roman law of the south, and between them every variety of peculiar and complicated local practice. One of the meanings of the Revolutionary watchword "Equality" was the reform of this inequality; but the turmoil prevalent during the years of the Assembly, the Convention, and the Directory had made it impossible to complete the work. Nevertheless, those years had been full of discussion, and Cambacérès had a project in readiness. So convinced was Bonaparte of the urgency of reform that on the very night in which he assumed the reins of government the two commissions were charged with the performance of the repeated promises which every republican government had made. A statute was formulated, and passed on August twelfth, 1800. In accordance with its provisions, a committee of three great jurists--Tronchet, Bigot de Préameneu, and Portalis, with Malleville as secretary--was appointed to make a draft. This was completed in four months, submitted to the courts of appeal for suggestions, and then in the council of state, the sessions of which Bonaparte regularly attended, was speedily revised into its final form. In the following year the code was promulgated. The famous body of laws owes its solid value to its historical foundation; for it is a compound of the ancient customs, the Roman law, and the experiences of the Revolution, the third element dominating the other two. Cambacérès's project is its basis, the deliberations of the commissions molded its form, its paragraphs were polished in the council of state according to the opinions of Boulay de la Meurthe, Berlier, Treilhard, Cambacérès, and Lebrun, and Bonaparte himself was the author of many radical regulations concerning marriage, divorce, and property. Simplicity, directness, comprehensibility, and appropriateness are the marks of the entire structure, as they are confessedly characteristic of the First Consul's mind. His good sense and his diligence are stamped on every page. On the other hand, in many places it bears also the marks of his unscientific and untrained intellect; and Savigny, the Prussian jurist, went so far as to characterize it as a "political malady."