7, 1809, on expropriations by public authority): "It is indispensable that the courts should supervise, stop expropriation, receive complaints of and guarantee property-owners against the enterprises of our prefects, our prefecture councils and all other agents....

Expropriation is a judicial proceeding....

I cannot conceive how France can have proprietors if anybody can be deprived of his field simply by an administrative decision."-- In relation to the ownership of mines, to the cadastre, to expropriation, and to the portion of property which a man might bequeath, Napoleon was more liberal than his jurists.

Madame de Stael, "Dix annees d'exil," ch.
XVIII.

(Napoleon conversing with the tribune Gallois): "Liberty consists of a good civil code, while modern nations care for nothing but property."-- "Correspondance," letter to Fouche, Jan.