Pierre Auguste Charles Bourguignon Derbigny was born in Laon, France in 1769. He studied civil law at St. Geneviève in France, but the French Revolution interrupted his studies. He left France in 1791, and after living in Santo Domingo, Philadelphia, Illinois, and Florida, he arrived in New Orleans in 1797.
In 1803, Derbigny was appointed by Governor Claiborne as the official interpreter of languages for the Territory of Orleans and served as the private secretary to the first mayor, Etienne de Boré. In 1804, he served as the clerk of court of common pleas. In 1805, Derbigny represented the city of New Orleans in a lawsuit against Edward Livingston on the ownership of the Batture, the alluvial land between the levee and the Mississippi River. In 1811, he also helped lead the movement to establish the College of Orleans, the first institution of higher learning in Louisiana, which subsequently closed in 1818.
In 1812, Derbigny served in the first Louisiana House of Representatives, representing New Orleans. He was appointed to revise the Louisiana Civil Code, along with Livingston and Moreau-Lislet. He opposed the
establishment of English common law in Louisiana, favoring the retention of the civil laws established in Louisiana during the French and Spanish colonial periods.
Derbigny was appointed by Governor Claiborne to serve on the first Supreme Court bench of the state of Louisiana from 1813-1820. While serving as judge, he wrote the opinion in Cottin v. Cottin (1817), which declared that Spanish laws were still in force in Louisiana. In 1820, he became the Louisiana Secretary of State, and in 1828, Derbigny became the sixth elected Louisiana Governor.
He died in Gretna, Louisiana in a carriage accident, October 6, 1829.
Left image: Portrait of Derbigny by George David Coulon (1895). (Credit: Louisiana Supreme Court Portrait Collection)
Right image: Derbigny Plantation historical marker in Gretna.
Louis Casimir Elisabeth Moreau-Lislet was born on Cap-Français, Saint Domingue, in 1767. Moreau-Lislet studied law and languages in France, returning to Cap-Français to practice. He married Anne Elisabeth Philippine de Peters in 1789, and they had one surviving daughter, Julie.
On his way to an assignment on another part of Saint Domingue, Moreau-Lislet’s ship was blown off course into a Spanish fleet, and he and his family were taken to Cuba. Before he could return to Saint Domingue, the Haitian Revolution had broken out.
After spending about a year in Cuba, Moreau-Lislet moved his family to Louisiana, where he began making a name for himself as a translator for the Orleans Territorial Legislature. In 1805, Moreau-Lislet was among the counsel who won a judicial decision continuing the use of civil law in Louisiana. He argued frequently before the highest territorial and state courts and opposed Edward Livingston in the case of the Batture, the series of lawsuits regarding the ownership of the alluvial land between the levee and the Mississippi River. His law practice thrived, and he argued over 200 cases before the Louisiana Supreme Court.
In 1806, Moreau-Lislet published an Explication des Lois Criminelles du Territoire d ’Orleans. He was later commissioned, along with James Brown, by the Legislature to compile a civil code, which became the Digest of the Civil Laws now in Force in the Territory of Orleans or The Digest of 1808. In 1820, Moreau-Lislet and attorney Henry Carleton translated the Siete Partidas from Spanish to English.
Moreau-Lislet collaborated with Edward Livingston and Pierre Derbigny in revising the Digest of 1808 to create the Civil Code of 1825. In addition to his scholarly work, Moreau-Lislet served as Orleans Parish judge, state attorney general, and state senator. He was also an active Mason and achieved the position of Grand Master in 1818. Moreau-Lislet died in New Orleans in 1832, and he is interred in St. Louis Cemetery Number One.
Right image: Portrait of Moreau-Lislet by Adolph D. Rinck (1818). Portrait is property of the Masons' Grand Lodge of Louisiana.
Left image: Moreau-Lislet's tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1.
Edward Livingston was born in Clermont, New York in 1754. He studied at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), graduating in 1781. In 1782, he began the study of law in the office of John Lansing. Among his fellow students were Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Livingston was elected to Congress and served from 1795-1800.
In 1801, Jefferson appointed Livingston as district attorney for the state of New York, a post he held simultaneously with his position as appointed mayor of New York City. After catching yellow fever during an 1803 epidemic, Livingston learned that $100,000 of public funds for which he was responsible as district attorney had been lost or stolen by a clerk he had employed. Livingston resigned his two positions, sold his property in partial payment of the debt, and sailed to New Orleans in December 1803. Louisiana had become a territory of the United States upon the Louisiana Purchase the previous April, and Livingston recognized New Orleans as a vibrant commercial center where he might earn enough money to retire his debt.
In February 1804, Livingston arrived in New Orleans; he had appeared in court on behalf of thirty-five clients by May, and quickly came to appreciate the finer points of the Roman civil law.
To prevent the first territorial legislative council—whose members were appointed by Gov. Claiborne—from adopting the common law, Livingston gathered signatures for a petition asking the U.S. Congress for immediate statehood. In 1806, the Orleans Territorial legislature passed an act declaring that Louisiana would retain the Roman civil law and the Spanish laws that were in effect at the time of the purchase. After a brief showdown, Claiborne capitulated; historians credit Livingston’s efforts in favor of the civil law for shaping the outcome.
In 1805, Livingston represented Jean Gravier in a series of lawsuits that came to be known as the Batture Controversy, a series of lawsuits regarding the ownership of the alluvial land between the levee and the Mississippi River. Louis Moreau-Lislet and Pierre Derbigny argued for the city of New Orleans and its residents. 
In 1815, Livingston served as an aide-de-camp to General Andrew Jackson during the Battle of New Orleans. In 1820, he was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives. In 1821, he was appointed to prepare a code of criminal law. Although Louisiana never adopted Livingston’s System of Penal Law, his reforms of the criminal law brought him international fame, as his code was published in countries across Europe, and even South America and Southeast Asia, and was very influential on the development of criminal law in several countries, including Brazil and India.
In 1822, the Louisiana legislature adopted a resolution appointing Livingston, Louis Moreau-Lislet, and Pierre Derbigny to revise the Digest of 1808, which became the 1825 Louisiana Civil Code. It is widely believed that the chapters on obligations were the sole work of Livingston.
From 1823 to 1828, Livingston was a U.S. Representative from Louisiana, and a U.S. Senator from Louisiana in from 1829 to 1831. Livingston was appointed Secretary of State by President Andrew Jackson in 1831. In 1832, the Governor of Louisiana presented Livingston with a medal honoring his work on the reforms of the civil and criminal law. Livingston ended his public career as Jackson’s minister to France from 1833 to 1835.
He died on May 23, 1836, at his home in New York. A distinguished English scholar, Sir Henry Maine, called Livingston “the first legal genius of modern times.”
Left image: Courtesy of Library of Congress prints and photographs division. Edward Livingston. E. Wellmore (Engraver) and K.L. Longacre (Illustrator)
Right image: Livingston devoted at least four years to the execution of A System of Penal Law for the State of Louisiana, which comprised a book of definitions and four codes: crimes and punishments, procedure, evidence, and reform and prison discipline.
