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Cornelis Felix van Maanen (The Hague, 9 September 1769 – there, 14 February 1846) was Minister of Justice under Louis Napoleon and Willem I. Van Maanen had a large share in the realization of the codification of law in law books. Cornelis Felix van Maanen was a member of the Van Maanen family and the eldest son of Johannes van Maanen (1738-1795) and his wife Maria van Overzee (1739-1820). His father studied and obtained his doctorate in 1760 in Leiden. He then settled in The Hague as a lawyer. He was an active patriot and was appointed counselor on 13 February 1795 in the Hof van Holland, Zeeland and West Friesland. He died a month later. His grandfather Cornelis van Maanen (1708-1743) was a notary and attorney at the Council of the Prince of Orange and the States General of the Netherlands. Cornelis Felix van Maanen attended the Latin school in The Hague and went to study in Leiden in 1788. His younger brother Pieter Jacob van Maanen (1770-1854) studied medicine in the same city. They became members of a secret student corps, where they were further initiated into the principles of patriotism. Cornelis Felix van Maanen obtained his PhD in 1793, and became a lawyer in The Hague, just like his father. On July 12, 1793 he took the lawyer’s oath before the Court of Holland, Zeeland and West-Friesland. Pieter Jacob van Maanen later became a professor at the University of Harderwijk and the University of Amsterdam.

Van Maanen started his administrative career during the Batavian Republic and was Minister of Justice and Police from 1806 to 1809 under Louis Napoleon. In 1809 he established the Civil Code, which was based on the French Civil Code, and a Criminal Code. In the same year he resigned as minister because he refused to cooperate in the formation of a secret police. At the time of the full incorporation (1810-1813) of the Kingdom of Holland by the French Empire, Van Maanen was president of the Imperial Court in The Hague. Van Maanen was a member of the Constitution Committees of 1813-1814 and 1815. In 1814 he defended the draft Constitution in the Assembly of Notables on behalf of the Constitution Committee. His brother Pieter Jacob van Maanen was one of the representatives of the Zuiderzee department during this meeting. From 1815 to 1842, Van Maanen was Minister of Justice under Willem I. In 1838, he introduced the Civil Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure.Van Maanen was closely involved in the abdication of Willem I in 1840. He drafted the accompanying proclamation. Van Maanen resigned in 1842 after the draft Conflict Law (on administrative disputes) was poorly received. William II replaced him with Van Hall. Van Maanen was minister of state from 1842 until his death in 1846. Van Maanen was initially fairly enlightened and in favor of public parliamentary meetings. Later, however, he played an important role in combating opposition, including measures to restrict freedom of the press. Known in this context was the trial of the Catholic apologist, historian and poet Joachim le Sage ten Broek who ended up in jail because of his actions. Van Maanen was an opponent of the introduction of ministerial responsibility and an advocate of decision-making. Van Maanen was a major advocate of the use of the Dutch language in the southern part of the united Netherlands north of the language border, nowadays Flanders. He was the inspiration for the important Royal Decree of 15 September 1819 (the so-called Language Decree): from 1 January 1823 Dutch became the only official language for court and administrative matters in the provinces of West and East Flanders, Antwerp and Limburg, a area that was subsequently expanded with the Flemish-speaking districts of Brussels and Leuven in the province of South Brabant. He also worked for both quality improvement and the Dutchization of education in these areas. In this way the seeds were laid for the development of a Dutch-speaking social elite in Flanders that would later lay the foundation for the Flemish Movement in the new, Belgian-style Belgium.

All these measures, although gradually and certainly not abruptly imposed, made him unpopular with the Belgian French-speaking opposition, who, on the day the Belgian Revolution (26 August 1830) broke out, set fire to his residence in Brussels. On September 3, 1830, Van Maanen received an honorable discharge at his own request, because his resignation would have a favorable influence on the vote in the Southern Netherlands.
He was then temporarily replaced by Frederik Willem Floris Theodorus van Pallandt van Keppel. At the beginning of October 1830, Van Maanen returned as Minister of Justice due to the course of events. Van Maanen married on November 11, 1798 in The Hague to Maria Theodora van der Meersch (1771-1855), daughter of Mr. Guilliam van der Meersch and Adriana Gerarda van der Craght. Their son Guillaume Adrien Gérard van Maanen (1801-1871) was an attorney general at the Supreme Court of the Netherlands. Their great-grandson was Adriaan van Maanen (1884-1946), astronomer and name giver of the Star of Van Maanen.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelis_Felix_van_Maanen