Natural Law and the Rights of Man in France before the Revolution
Natural Law and the Rights of Man in France before the Revolution

Summary/Abstract: Elaborating on recent works on the merits of the physiocrats, we ask whether the interest in the rights of man could also be traced in the legal sciences and whether French legal scientists applied the secular natural law of the ‘school of the north’ (Grotius, Pufendorf). There was a French tradition of ‘ordre naturel’ which drew on Domat and Montesquieu, which instigated the refashioning of Roman law by Bourjon, Pothier and others, who focused on the rights of persons. However, the ‘school of the north’ made some impact. It was thanks to a reinterpretation of history that French lawyers managed to push through the idea that equality, rather than inequality, should be seen as the normal status of persons. Several reform projects in higher education were continued after 1789 with an effort to use natural law to interpret the Declaration.

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