Page 105 - index

referred to. (2)
The Ordinance not having been regiatered, it was
incumbent upon the Appellants to slreu: thal the French Eaw
inlrodueed in Canada in 1668, and luhich presumably con-
tinued to be de law there, becanre altrred and rnodified i~i
consequenec of the jurisprudcncc of the province having
adoptcd the rules contained in it. The lenrned Counsel
for the Appellantswas unable, after great rescsrch, to
produce any cvidencc that has been thus changrd or Ino-
dificd: nnd, in its absence, their Lordships think that surh
clirtnge c:inn<,t I>r prrsumrd.
Tlie only authority n-hich thc learned eounsel could in-
voke is that of the ('onin~issioners chargrd with the
preparation of the Cariadian Civil Code, who in their Re-
port (vol. ii p. 333) state the law ver?; nearly in th? terms
of the Ordinanceof 1731, to which, indeed, they refer. This
authority is no doubt entitled to respect; hut the opinion of
the Coinmissioners hnsnot the neight of a judicial opinion
pronouiiced after discussion and argument; and it is to
be observed that the Commissioners, ha vin^ dccided to
introduce a nelvlaw (opposcd to the Inw "Si un<luam"),
and not the old whatever it wss, into the Code, n7ere the
less concerned to ascertain with precision what the old law
was. TVhatever respect, therefore, may be due to the
opinion of the Commissioners, their Lordships think, for
the reasons niready given, that it cannot of itself be re-
garded assiitlicient cvidence that the 1aw of the Ordinsnce
of 1731 hadfoundits wy into the jurisprudence of Canada.
Regnrding, then, the hw oj Canadn to be that wlrich ezis-
Min the jzrrisprudmice of the Parlilirnent of Paris, before the
Ordinance, the questions remains whether the gift in ques-
tion was revocable upon the birth of children.
In deciding it, two matters of fact i.equiretobeconside-
red, one, the Iargenessof the gift, the other, wliether the
donor would have made it if shc had contem~lated chil-

(2) 3 App. Cas. 1119