Dalloz, Armand, 1797-1867.
Dalloz' Dictionnaire : French Law
|
| Dictionnaire, 1835 |
Dalloz was a prominent lawyer who consulted with the Crown and the Supreme Court of Appeals, and was a member of the Legion of Honor. He wrote several general-reference legal works about jurisprudence in France, including the comprehensive twelve-volume Jurisprudence générale du Royaume : en matière civile, commerciale et criminelle ou journal des audiences de la cour de cassation et des cours royales. It appears that he wrote his dictionary to accompany this work. Dalloz admits that, for his dictionary, he extracted much material from that work, and in the writing of both collaborated with a great many other lawyers and jurists.
Dalloz stated in the preface of this work, as the first sentence, that jurists, magistrates, and businessmen often complain that they have terrible trouble finding solutions to their questions, whether general or specific, in books. He assured his readers that this was an exaggerated perception caused by several people who were just in bad moods, but he conceded that there was so much contradictory and/or unscientific literature that it was often difficult to trust what one was reading. With his dictionary, he attempted to solve these dilemmas. His goal was to read, condense, and present the most logical and reasonable definitions relating to the law, to reduce the general chaos caused by the contradictory decisions and literature produced by the courts.
His large five-volume dictionary is printed in a three-column layout with tiny type. Dalloz consistently and exhaustively listed precise codes and statutes to accompany his definitions, causing almost every definition to be quite long, often more than a page and sometimes longer than twenty pages.
Bibliography
If you have questions or suggestions on this site, please contact the
Rare Books & Special Collections Department.
For technical problems with this site, please contact the
Webmaster.