Often considered the chief legacy of Napoleon Bonaparte, the Code Napoleon (Napoleonic law) came into effect in 1804 and remains the law of France. It is a collection of legal principles, in five sections: the Civil Code, the code of civil procedure, the code of criminal procedure and penal law, the penal code, and the commercial code. The Codes were based on common sense rather than any legal theory. According to the Cambridge Modern History, "the Codes preserve the essential conquests of the revolutionary spirit-civil equality, religious toleration, the emancipation of land, public trial, the jury of judgment. . . . In a clear and compact shape, they presented to Europe the main rules which should govern a civilised society."