Opinion ID: 597120
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: French Law

Text: 44 The French commentator Troplong regarded pledge and mortgage as different, particularly in that hypotheque left to the debtor the possession of the property that pignus or pledge took from him. 20 Troplong did, however, describe hypotheque as a variant of pignus. 21 45 The French not only retained a later Roman distinction between pledge and mortgage in adapting Roman law governing security rights, but added another by restricting the hypotheque to immovable property. 22 The French Civil Code of 1804 (hereafter, the Code Napoleon) codified these differences. 23 Pothier, however, had drawn those distinctions earlier in his Traite de l'Hypotheque. The hypotheque, Pothier said, was the right of a creditor in the property of another, consisting of the power to cause the sale of the property for satisfaction of the debt. Pothier posited two forms of hypotheques: 1) Nantissement [pledge] or pignus, contracted by delivery of the securing property to the creditor; and 2) hypotheque [mortgage] properly so called, contracted without delivery. 24 Pothier noted that although under the Romans all things in commerce--movable or immovable, corporeal or incorporeal--had been susceptible of hypothecation, under the French only immovables were subject to the true hypotheque. According to Pothier, the customs of Paris and Orleans permitted no hypothecation of movables whatsoever. Where, as in Normandy, local customary law regarded movables as subject to hypothecation, this merely produced an imperfect form of security right, lasting only as long as the debtor retained possession of the movable. The security right on immovables, however, followed the property into whatever hands it passed, constituting, Pothier said, a true hypotheque. 25 46 Here, the Code Napoleon consolidated customary law with written law, conclusively eliminating those customary laws by which some regions had regarded movables as subject to hypothecation. 26 While the hypotheque was defined as the real right itself, the Code Napoleon defined pledge (nantissement ) as the contract by which a debtor remitted a thing to his creditor as security for a debt. 27 A hypotheque applied only to immovable property, yet it remained possible to pledge a movable under gage [pawn], and an immovable under the contract denominated antichrese. 28 47