Code of Offences and Penalties

The Code of Offences and Penalties (French: Code des délits et des peines) was a criminal code adopted in revolutionary France by the National Convention on 25 October 1795 (the 3rd of Brumaire of the year IV under the French Republican Calendar).

Containing 646 articles, the Code deals with judicial organization, criminal procedure as well as penalties. It is notable for suppressing afflictive penalties, with the exception of the death penalty, and for creating prison sentences, the harshest of which is known as the Peine de la Gêne, and consists of a fifty-year imprisonment in a windowless cell without any possibility of communication with either outside persons or inmates.