M. Dutard, fl. 1844; M. Sassere, fl. 1844.

Dutard and Sassere's Dictionnaire : (French Law, 1844)

Dictionnaire, 1844

Information about Monsieurs Dutard and Sassere is truly lacking; they only thing anyone seems to know about them is what they stated on the title page: they were lawyers at the Royal Court of Paris.

One can sense that a consciously humane optimism guided these two men in the writing of their book. They made it clear in their preface that they wished to expand ordinary citizens' knowledge of the most commonly applied laws, for use during interactions with other people and the government. In condensing the breadth of the whole law to their narrow volume, they intended their work to be of use to farmers, merchants, and simple village and city dwellers; everyone is charged with obeying the laws, they wrote, thus a basic knowledge of the law is of interest to all. Readers could use the work to know and defend their rights, and to be vigilant about making administrators aware of their needs and desires.

The work is arranged rather like a student's textbook, the definitions worded simply. Various sections guide the reader, accompanied by questions the reader might ask. For example, under "contrat de mariage," the writers begin: "How is marriage composed legally? By whom and how is it administrated? How does it dissolve? And after its dissolution, what are the rights of the husbands, and especially those of the women? These are the four questions that the four following paragraphs will answer."

Bibliography