Overview
Napoleon I was the greatest military genius of his time. He created an empire that covered most of western and central Europe. He was also an excellent administrator. One of his achievements was the supervision of the revision and collection of French law into codes. The new law codes incorporated some of the freedoms gained by the people of France during the French Revolution, including religious tolerance and the abolition of serfdom. The most famous of the codes, the Code Napoleon or Code Civil, still forms the basis of French civil law.