Marcel Planiol was born in 1853 and embarked on a legal career at a time when French jurisprudence was dominated by the "School of Exegesis." This school of thought treated the Napoleonic Code (Civil Code of 1804) as a sacred text, focusing almost exclusively on grammatical interpretation of its articles. Planiol, however, recognized that society had evolved significantly since the Code's inception, and a strictly textual approach was insufficient to address the complexities of modern life.