Henri Eugène Omer
Decugis
Male
France
1874-02-01
Paris, France
1947-10-28
Paris, France
Henri Decugis was the brother of fellow lawn tennis player Max Decugis (1882-1978). Henri Decugis was a jurist, specialist in comparative law and lawyer at the Court of Appeal in Paris. He also wrote several books on law and sociology, including Les Etapes de Droit/The Stages of Law, which was first published in 1942. On 4 July 1899, in Paris, he married Jeanne Edmée Chamerot (1874-1961), who was also from Paris. They had three children together: two sons and one daughter. Henri Decugis died in 1947 at the age of 73.
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[A eulogy for Henri Decugis was delivered in November 1947, shortly after his death. An English translation of it is reproduced below.]
This eulogy was delivered by Mr Jean-Paulin Niboyet, Professor at the Faculty of Law of Paris and President of the Society of Comparative Legislation, at the meeting held on Friday, November 14, 1947, under the presidency of the Dean, Mr Juilliot de La Morandine.
On the day of Henri Decugis’s funeral, I would have liked to be able, before his coffin, to give free rein to my feelings, which are those of all the members of our Society. We bowed to the wish expressed to us – and which we understand only too well – not to prolong a ceremony that risked being beyond your strength. But here, within our Society, it is appropriate to pay Henri Decugis the homage that is due to him.
I believe that we will have qualified all the relations that, for half a century, he had with us by saying that he deeply loved the Society of Comparative Legislation, in the simple, human and true sense of the term. He loved it with a constancy that never wavered.
And it was with poignant emotion that we learned that he had wanted to remain among us beyond death, by bequeathing us a magnificent working tool in the form of his library of Anglo-Saxon and Roman law, a jewel added to another, our library of nearly 80,000 volumes, one of the finest in the world in this field, and thanks to which generations and generations will be able to improve themselves, will be able to create, will be able to carry out research in the field of Anglo-Saxon law in particular, where we are extremely poor.
I know your feelings too well, Madam, not to know that during this half century of deep friendship, you have constantly maintained these sentiments with Henri Decugis, and that, if he leaves us this legacy, it is in full agreement with you, who encouraged him to do so. I would like to express our sincere thanks in this respect.
Decugis was one of our oldest members and throughout his life, one might say, he was both a comparatist and a member of our Society. His doctoral thesis was written in 1899. I held it in my hands these last few days – done on beautiful paper that makes us melancholic, it is a magnificent work of three hundred pages on French corporate law, English law and comparative law.
That was the same year, 1899, that Decugis joined our Society. Since then, he has attended all our meetings, all our committees. He has truly been a friend of the house. In his biography, I read a fact that struck me: although, for nearly fifty years, Decugis has been a steadfast friend of our Society, it was at the very moment he was writing this thesis on comparative law, and when he joined our Society, that he met you, Madame, and married you.
Thus, during this half-century, there is a complete parallel between this union, which I know was a happy one and, on the other hand, this constant collaboration with our Society. Thus, during this half-century, through him, you have been present in our Society and, allow me to tell you that, although he is gone, through you he is still present among us.
During this long period of time, if we leaf through our directories and bulletins, we see many of his studies, papers, and translations. He was a member of the English language section. He not only spoke that language perfectly, but he also had a thorough knowledge of the commercial law of our neighbors. He chaired this section. In 1929, he chaired a committee to translate the great British Companies Act, and through his marvellous knowledge of English and English law, he provided services that no one can dispute, that no one can provide in his place.
He was such a friend of the house, such a part of our country, that when we had to choose a President in 1938, almost on the eve of war, it seemed perfectly natural to elect him. And so his name appears at the bottom of a long list, and when we look through it, we see that it contains many of our country’s great and eminent men who belong to the history of France: Alexandre Ribot, Raymond Poincaré; at the Bar, eminent men like Bétolaud and Cartier; in the judiciary – I speak only of those who are no longer here – President Baudeuin; in education, the illustrious Charles Lyon-Caen and, more recently, Henri Lévy-Ullmann. His name was not unworthy of those who had preceded him.
His presidency was the longest of all. Due to the painful circumstances of the war, he remained our President for eight years, but it was perhaps during this period that he was most useful, that he most effectively served our Society. There was, in fact, a danger. Our library of nearly 80,000 volumes, the jewel I spoke of earlier, was obviously bait for the occupier; we had to, as much as possible, hide it from their eyes; we had, above all, not to operate, not to ask for an authorization that would have seemed to dishonour it.
From time to time, in Henri Decugis’s office, meetings were held clandestinely to expedite the day-to-day business of our Society. We were able to save our heritage, and Decugis had the great joy when, after the Liberation, we met for the first time, of being able to return to the Society what it had entrusted to him, that is to say, its management of this magnificent library which, I repeat, is one of the most beautiful, indisputably, in comparative law in the world today.
We would therefore have liked to be able to keep him as President for a long time. When the Secretary General of the Society, the devoted Mr Ancel, came to me to ask me to take over from him, I did everything in my power to keep him, but the statutes were there, putting an end to a presidency that had lasted four times longer than it should have. We had to resign ourselves and accept a heavy succession of debts, for me as for so many others, after all he had done for us.
Many presidents have left us. We rarely see them again. He always remained in contact with us. We felt that there was a little melancholy in him at no longer being with us. At all our working sessions, at all our Council meetings, he was there, always punctual, useful, precious to us, with that fine, distinguished, delicate face, that intelligent, smiling look, and sometimes that ironic look. And it will pain us, in our room, which is not the one where special circumstances oblige us to meet today, to see empty the place where he used to sit.
He never stopped thinking of us. The last conversation I had with him, a few days before his death, was to tell me that we should consider organizing a major comparative law conference soon, and of course in Paris. Thus, the last words that, for me, fell from his lips, were intended to express the concerns of a comparatist and a good Frenchman always concerned about the reputation of his country.
We are astonished to realize that with such extensive activities as his, with a firm that was one of the great firms of the Bar, he was able to write so many things mentioned in library catalogues. I will not list all of his works. I would like to mention just a few. There is a major treatise on joint-stock companies, which has had more than seven editions, a work on industrial agreements. How many booklets, notes and communications! He was constantly on the go, studying law.
But law was not everything to him. Something else haunted him, preoccupied him: philosophical problems, especially sociology, and especially legal sociology. Even before his doctoral thesis, in a small booklet published in 1895, he concerned himself with the consequences of communications on the development of societies. Then, around 1932, he published a work on the destiny of races, which immediately went into three editions, from 1932 to 1935. But his main work is ‘The Stages of Law’.
There is a connection that does not seem at all abnormal between his passion for comparative law and also for his studies in sociology. Indeed, if we go back to Antiquity, we find a phrase from Aristotle: Learn to know yourself. This doesn’t mean: Observe yourself, engage in introspection and be self-centred. Rather, it specifically means: Learn to know yourself by observing others, by getting closer to them, by comparing yourself to them; and then become aware of yourself. It is from this profound philosophical thought that all comparative law springs.
In fact, it is not enough to study one’s own law to say that one knows the whole history of law. One must approach the law of foreign countries, compare it to our own in order to gain a better understanding of what French law is, to appreciate its advantages, its qualities and also its flaws. And by comparing the law of various countries, we realize that beneath the differences, which are sometimes more apparent than real, there is, at bottom, a great common idea: It is always man, it is always what is human, what lives, what suffers, that we find; a humanity which has been searching for itself for a long time, and which will perhaps, one day, end up finding itself again.
His ‘Stages of Law’ are truly his intellectual testament. This work was a great success. A first edition appeared in 1942 and was quickly followed, in 1946, by a second, considerably expanded, edition. This book is particularly instructive. What erudition, so much knowledge about so many civilizations, about property, about contracts, about prescription, so much historical data!
Decugis seeks to retrace the principal stages of law, the mechanism of law, and to do so, he seeks to go back to the most primitive civilizations: Mesopotamia, Egypt, Athens, China and Rome. One chapter particularly struck me, the one he titled ‘The End of Law’. Indeed, he shows us civilizations that have disappeared, civilizations that had reached the highest levels of refinement. He doesn’t tell us about ours, but if we read between the lines, we can clearly sense that he also fears that ours, in turn, will disappear, since others, just as perfect, just as complete, have gradually died out.
However, this chapter on the end of law should not be seen as a sign of despair, but, on the contrary, as a sign of will, like the response of those who, after 1940, did not accept what had happened, and said: “We do not want to capitulate.” We too can, if we want to, overcome all the causes of decline that threaten us. We are like those who are at the top of a mountain from which two paths branch out – one that descends gently toward the prosperous valleys; the other, shorter, more welcoming, that leads toward the fog, the precipice and the fall. With this chapter – which made me reflect a lot and which will make those who, after me, want to read it, meditate – Decugis, at the moment of leaving us, rendered, in philosophy, a very great service to his generation.
He received many honours along the way. He would have liked one more, and if it had been up to us, we would have given it to him. He would have liked to be a member of the Institute. If he had been, from our point of view it would have added nothing to him, and by not having been, we do not think he has really lost anything.
Madam, I have prolonged this speech too long, and it is certainly painful for you to hear it. I know that nothing can alleviate your current pain. Only time, perhaps... but I add a question mark… will do that… I would like you to find a little consolation, some comfort in the thought that you were lucky enough to be the companion, for nearly half a century, of a man who strove to be a useful man.
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1894 - 1902
0
9
0
Round 1
Paul Émile Lecaron 1 *
Henri Eugène Omer Decugis
6-4
11-9
Quarterfinals
Jacques François Marie Worth 1 *
Henri Eugène Omer Decugis
6-1
6-2
Round 1
Max Decugis 1 *
Henri Eugène Omer Decugis
6-2
6-4
Round 2
Arthur Benedict Joseph Norris 1 *
Henri Eugène Omer Decugis
6-0
6-4
Round 1
Duncan William Candler 1 *
Henri Eugène Omer Decugis
6-3
6-3
Round 2
F. Carter 1 *
Henri Eugène Omer Decugis
7-5
6-2
Quarterfinals
Étienne Durand 1 *
Henri Eugène Omer Decugis
6-4
6-0
Round 1
André Vacherot 1 *
Henri Eugène Omer Decugis
6-3
6-3
Round 1
Dr Paul Lebreton 1 *
Henri Eugène Omer Decugis
6-4
ret.